


diagnose the present

by cyclothimic



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Firefighters, Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Complicated Relationships, Doctor Lena Luthor, F/F, Firefighter Kara Danvers, Good Luthors (Supergirl TV 2015), Good Person Lex Luthor, Hospitals, Humor, Romance, look man i'm not gonna spoil you in the tags, you just gotta trust me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28340721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyclothimic/pseuds/cyclothimic
Summary: There was a reason Kara left Metropolis to become a firefighter at National City, and for three years, she'd been doing pretty well. That was until her past came barging back into her life in the form of Lena Luthor.-"Good to see you again, Lena.""No, it's not, Kara.""No, no, it's not. But we will be seeing each other, like it or not."-or Kara is a firefighter and Lena is a doctor, and they never expected to be back in each other's lives until they are, so it's Complicated with a capital C.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Samantha "Sam" Arias/Alex Danvers
Comments: 190
Kudos: 1017





	1. this is your starting line

**Author's Note:**

> don't ask me why i keep writing medical fics, guess i'm just a sucker for them. now, there's a shocker in the end, but you may be able to figure it out in the end.
> 
> it's been quite some time i wrote a multichapter supercorp fic - i hope i haven't gone rusty, but most importantly, i hope y'all will enjoy it! oh and uh, just to forewarn you, i have no bloody clue about medical terms or even firefighting. i'm just pretending i know things after watching grey's anatomy and station 19, cheers!
> 
> now, read, ponder, and enjoy!

For once, the siren was silent. No voice emitted from the intercom requesting assistance from aid cars, engines, or even something as simple as a ladder. No one came rushing in to drop a baby or yell at the staff to just _come out and help, please_.

For once, it was a Friday night, and the night shift of Station 15 could sit down in the dining room and just enjoy their dinner. They could take off their jackets. They could let down their hair. They could take their time seasoning the food to get it all right. They could do all those things. Maybe even take a nap here and there after a long shift.

"It's Friday, right?" Sam asked, swinging the plastic fork around with a suspicious frown on the bridge of her nose.

Probably thinking the same thing as everyone else in the station but too afraid to actually say it out loud, Lucy surreptitiously fished out her phone and checked the calendar. She turned it around to show the glaring date at Sam and everyone else over her shoulder. Her eyes were narrowed suspiciously as well.

Yes, yes, it was Friday, indeed. Friday night, in fact. Friday _night_ , and they weren't constantly returning and heading out on a rotation, as any fire departments in the country were prone to do on this particular night. To be fair, Sam and Lucy weren't the only ones suspicious. Even Kara, who was probably the most optimistic of them all, was feeling a little strange this night.

But once again, they never said it out loud. Firefighters carried the same philosophy as trauma doctors; something that was too good to be true shouldn't be taken for granted. Never say the words out loud, and they should be fine. They should be able to play the Xbox for the whole night and not have to worry about a thing.

"Should it be this quiet –" Literally _all_ of Station 15 released loud and unhappy groans as soon as the word left Nia's mouth "– on a Friday night?" Nia tapered off, clearly sensing that she'd said the wrong thing.

Lucy glared at Kara accusatively. "She's _your_ newbie."

Kara threw her hands up. "Just because we get along doesn't mean she's _my_ responsibility alone. She's _our_ newbie," she complained. Taking pity on Nia's remaining confusion, she sighed and said, "We never say that word as a firefighter. No matter where you are, we just don't _say_ it."

"What word?"

"No, I'm not saying it."

"Qui –"

"No!" everyone yelled, with Leslie oddly being the loudest, given that she was always sulking in a corner and mumbling under her breath.

In that instance, literally the very instance everyone breathed the tail end of a single-syllable word, the siren _went off_. Loud and invasive and completely uncaring for the few who had yet to finish their dinner. Through the intercom came the automated voice. Clear and monotone and totally unaware of the disturbance he had issued.

As the voice read out the apparatuses needed for this particular emergency – a five-car pileup – the firefighters heaved in disappointment at an oddly peaceful Friday night and began rushing towards the apparatus bay.

"The word, by the way, is 'quiet'," Kara informed Nia as they ran towards the bay.

After all, an emergency was already happening. People were already injured. The night was already ruined. There was no point in keeping up with the taboo.

* * *

The five-car pileup was very much worse than it sounded. Two cars on top of one another; Sam was still trying to figure out the mechanics of it all, since she was the captain and all. One car's head stuck into the back of the bottom car of the two cars. Another two had somehow wrapped themselves around the same tree.

People were crying. Blood was flowing like those slushie machines in a 7-11. Children were trapped inside one of the cars, quite literally losing air as the firefighters figured out some way to extricate the kids without hurting them further.

This was _Friday night_. Kara had seen her sum of terrible things in her five years as a firefighter in National City, but this was definitely one of the worst scenarios she'd ever had to show up for. Five years ago, Kara would have thrown herself at a bush and throw up her dinner, but now, she only braced herself, put on her Lieutenant helmet, and got to work, as per Sam's instructions.

Once she was sure that Lucy and James were figuring out the children situation, she headed over to the area where the people involved were gathered, sitting on the curb and nursing their various injuries. Kara didn't allow herself the luxury of sympathizing or pitying them; she wouldn't be able to do her job if she did.

Instead, she checked for pulses and instant reactions. She touched bodies and figured out what hurt and what did no. Next to her, Barry and Caitlin were doing the same thing. They couldn't allow themselves to sympathize or pity these people, even though as Kara heard a mother wailing in the back for Kara's colleagues to save her babies trapped in the car, she wanted to just head over and pry the door open herself.

An elderly gentleman had suddenly ended up seizing, grabbing the attention of basically everyone else at the curb. In the whim of the moment, because that was what EMTs did – in the whim of the moment – Kara deduced that the man had been trapped in the car for far too long, adding onto the weak lungs that his wife mentioned he had, leading to this seizure.

"We have to bag him," Kara authorized, gesturing wildly at either Barry or Caitlin to hand her the kit.

"That won't work," an authoritative voice said from behind her.

Kara stopped whatever she was doing, as did Barry and Caitlin, to turn around and find a woman standing there. Even under the darkness and the flashing lights of the fire engines and aid cars, there was really no mistaking that this woman was sculpted very carefully by the hands of the creators, if there was every such a thing.

Despite the urgency of the situation, she blinked a couple of times, unable to believe the sight before her. Silky black hair, albeit longer. Clean blouse and slacks, completely unlike the messy shirts and jeans that she was used to. Red lips, always, Kara wondered if it was still the same brand from Sephora. But those eyes, green and electric, they never failed in striking Kara to the core.

She gulped and took in the familiar _vision_ before her, amidst the chaos surrounding them. And god, the last time she was so frozen in place with no words to escape her lips – the last time, she didn't like to think about the last time.

"Who are you?" Caitlin asked with a frown.

The woman looked away from Kara to her colleague. "Lena Luthor. I'm a doctor at NC General," she replied quickly and knelt down beside Kara. No, actually, she _pushed_ Kara away, and the blonde just took it, sidestepping to allow the woman – _Lena_ – to take her spot. "You said it yourself. The guy's run out of oxygen. Bagging him while he's seizing won't help. We need a thoracotomy."

"Are you insane? We're in the middle of the road!" Barry exclaimed.

Lena lifted her gaze at Barry with a mixture of disdain and disappointment, as if she couldn't believe someone like Barry could be a certified paramedic. She then returned her gaze to Kara, pinning the blonde down again, and rolled up her sleeves.

"You're in charge, correct?" Gone was the softness that Kara was used to, replaced by stiffness and professionalism that she had only ever witnessed directed to, well, people who were not her.

"Yes," Kara replied weakly.

"Emergency thoracotomy. Right now. I guarantee you right now, Lieutenant –" Lena addressed after having one quick look at the title printed on Kara's helmet "– this man _will_ die if we don't do this right now."

It didn't seem possible, but the environment seemed to have gone hotter as Lena remained by her side, making it more sweltering under the turnout gear that Kara was wrapped up in from head to toe. She frowned and shook herself, forcing herself to ask, "Can I see some credentials?"

The doctor made a double-take at the demand. Kara could see in her defiant eyes that she was about to _defy_ , probably claiming that Kara knew _damn well_ that she was a doctor – a damn good one at that. Fortunately though, Lena huffily reached into her back pocket to fish out a badge that clearly stated that she was a trauma attending at National City General Hospital.

Kara couldn't help but notice the time stamp of the badge. Only acquired two days ago. Two days, and Kara had been lounging around at Station 15, having no knowledge of this woman's presence in her city. Two days, they'd been circling in each other's orbits.

Badge in hand and ignorant of all the eyes on her, she swiveled around to locate Sam in the crowd, clearly busy with all the other work that needed to be done. Logically, Sam, of all people, should know more about this than anyone else on the planet. And yet, for the past two days, she'd made no hint or clue about Lena Luthor coming to National City. None at all.

"Lieutenant," Lena snapped. "This man's life is hanging by a thread here. Thoracotomy. _Now_."

"Right," Kara replied and nodded, snatching the kit from Caitlin and laying it open. "I hope you know what you're doing."

"I _always_ know what I'm doing," Lena scoffed.

Barry and Caitlin watched as Kara suddenly became Lena's assist. She dutifully followed Lena's instructions. Calming prescription. Scalpel. Disinfectant. Tube. Tapes. Lena talked, and Kara listened.

When the deed was done, the wife was wailing as her husband stopped seizing and started seizing again, even regaining consciousness for a couple of seconds before fainting again. They loaded him into the back of the aid car, followed by Lena and the wife.

"Did she just say her name's –"

"Lena Luthor, yeah," Caitlin confirmed Barry's incomplete inquiry.

"Lena Luthor, like _the_ Lena Luthor."

"Lena Luthor, like _the_ sister of Lex Luthor, Lena Luthor."

Kara didn't take her eyes off the aid car. Even as it rounded a block and disappeared from her sight, she stood there, completely unhearing of the screams and cries still going on behind her. It felt like déjà vu, except she suspected that it wouldn't much of a déjà vu if Lena was here to stay.

She clenched her jaw as her heart clenched itself. Yep, déjà vu. Shaking her head wildly, she swung back around and went back to the curb. Now was not the time to think about anything other than the people she still had to tend to.

* * *

Three hours later, the last of the victims were sent to NC General, the nearest hospital in their vicinity. The cars had been towed away. The roads were cleared. Everyone went back to their daily lives, none the wiser of the five-car tragedy that would turn out to be some long ass reports.

Kara had resigned herself to a long night of sitting in front of her laptop, helping Sam draft out the reports, because that was what Lieutenants and Captains did. That was the least favorite part of her job, to be frank. When she signed up to be a firefighter, she was into it for the action and the thrill of being at the very frontline; she didn't expect the paperwork that came with it.

But since she was already at the hospital with its myriad of vending machines scattered around, she might as well take advantage of it. Waving at Barry and Caitlin to head back to the station, she refused to enter the building, instead choosing to round the hospital from the ER entrance to the main entrance, where there was a coffee cart sitting just outside.

She purchased a cup of piping hot latte and was about to walk back to the station, until she saw Lena sitting on a bench just a few yards away.

Kara stood, rooted to the spot by the coffee cart, and hesitated in whether she should play blind or be the bigger woman, as they would say. Eliza would probably advise her to do the latter, while Alex would definitely urge her to run as far as she could. Or Alex wouldn't, since she didn't even deign to warn Kara about Lena coming to National City. Working in the same hospital as her, even.

Would she be able to take it? Could she walk away again? Did she _want_ to walk away? All questions that Kara had no answer to. Not three years ago, certainly not now.

Before she could sanction, her legs had automatically brought her, slow step by slow step, to the bench. Before she knew it, she was standing there, towering over Lena, within talking distance without fear of the other not hearing them. She hesitated, but offered a small smile, to which Lena, thankfully, returned.

"Hey," she greeted, and found herself very glad that she did not choke.

Lena, the woman who made debate a hobby, didn't say a word for the first few moments, only staring up at Kara with her mouth slightly opened. And then she gulped and said, "Hey."

Say something. Anything. The rational part of her brain knew it would make most sense for her to keep the conversation going. But the petty part of her, the enamored and messy part of her, wasn't really sure _how_ she could even keep the conversation, or if she would be able to handle it.

She opened her mouth, thinking that since she was in a habit of saying things before she could think them through, she might as well let the motors run in this situation. Except the motors were failing her, sputtering down the road with no grease, and she opened her mouth and had nothing to say.

She looked at Lena and she thought that she shouldn't have come here. She should have minded her own business and walked off the premises with her piping hot latte. There was absolutely no reason for her to walk over here and pretend that three years had been enough to soothe the complete chaos that she'd left behind.

That both of them had left behind.

Instead of walking away, she sat down beside Lena on the bench, though with significant distance between them. She extended the cup over to Lena, deciding that she could buy another for herself.

She shrugged when Lena turned curious eyes at her. "I know how much you like caffeine after a surgery," she remarked.

"Is this that horrendous oversweet latte that you tend to go for?" Lena asked, raising a brow.

"Always so judgmental," Kara complained with a playful frown. "Come on, just take the coffee."

After a moment of reluctance, the raven-haired woman ended up taking the cup anyway; of course, she blanched after having take a sip, but at least she didn't complain more or put the cup away. Small mercies.

Not another word was spoken. Lena's finger was relentless on the lid of the cup, wearing it away sooner or later. Kara made sure to look at the tree in front of them, though she'd admit that she stole glances at the woman once or twice. This was undeniably awkward, completely unlike the comfortable silences they used to find themselves in ensconced in.

There were reports waiting to be written back at the station. Sam was probably already slaving away while Lucy was teasing Nia for speaking the cursed word that got them all here in the first place. Not usually a superstitious person, but she did wonder momentarily if she could blame the newbie for her current awkward situation.

"Did you choose trauma or neuro?" Kara finally asked.

"Both," Lena announced, not without a huge sense of pride in her voice. Her smile was telling enough.

"Of course you did," Kara scoffed. "You just like to make things more complicated for yourself."

Lena made an affronted noise. "I like both, I can do both, so I chose both. What's wrong with that?" she demanded, her voice high-pitched, which was a big hint at her defense system rising up.

And Kara, well, she had never failed in rising up to the challenge when it came in the form of Lena Luthor, no matter how long it had been since they last saw one another. "Three years ago, you were complaining _at_ me for –" she stopped herself short before she brought up bad memories and ruined the night further. She shoved her hands in her jacket pockets and adjusted her glasses.

"No, go ahead," Lena prodded, her voice stiff and low.

Kara looked up from her boots to be pinned in place by those goddamn eyes. She didn't like to admit weaknesses, but this woman in front of her had definitely been one of her weaknesses. Sometimes, she would have an inkling that Lena _still_ was, actually, except she didn't allow herself the time or space to dig into that.

God, talk about a wrench in her plans to stay as far away as possible and banning even the slightest mention of Lena within her social circle.

She shook her head with a melancholic smile and stood up, hands still shoved in her pockets, because if she let them hang in the air, there was no guarantee that she wouldn't take Lena and airlift them very, very far away from here. That would be kidnapping, and Kara didn't condone that. Maybe a little, in this situation. She found that she'd condone anything when it came to Lena, even giving up her caffeine boost.

Gesturing vaguely around them, she asked, "Is National City permanent? Or just a stop?"

Lena offered only a shrug, deflating where she sat. "I signed a two-year contract with the hospital," she replied. "So I'll be here for two years, at least."

Their paths would be crossing for the next two years, maybe even more, because one of them was a paramedic and firefighter while the other was a trauma surgeon. Their paths would cross a hell of a lot more than she wanted, and Kara suspected, more than _Lena_ wanted.

"Good to see you again, Lena," she offered.

"No, it's not."

Kara chuckled and nodded reluctantly. "No, no, it's not, Lena. But we will be seeing each other, like it or not." She sighed. "Did you know – who am I kidding? Of course you knew I'd be here."

"If you're gonna imply that I came here because of you, Kara –"

"No, no," Kara denied quickly, laughing to herself. "I'm not that big of an idiot. You've never allowed something as mediocre as a woman inspire you to do anything in your life. I know that firsthand," she added with a taste of self-deprecation. She didn't just know it firsthand; she knew it _too well_. This conversation was going nowhere, so she pointed a finger over her shoulder. "I should go. Reports to write. Naps to take. All that stuff."

Lena didn't say anything. She just lowered her head in…approval? Agreement? The last time they came to an agreement, they walked out of each other's lives.

Kara spun on her feet and walked away before she did anything stupid. Stupid like kidnapping Lena. Stupid like sitting down to Lena again and never do anything. Stupid like choosing to stay at this hospital to get a coffee, knowing full well that Lena would still be here, because Lena never did anything half-assed.

Honestly, she should have seen this coming. But she didn't, and ensued was an awkward conversation with underlying tones of resentment. For the second time in her life, she walked away in her life. However, she didn't swear once again that she would never think about Lena again. This conversation was proof enough that she wasn't strong enough for that.

* * *

_Kara (1:46 a.m.): did u knw_

_Alex (1:48 a.m.): Know what?_

_Kara (1:48 a.m.): lena._

_Alex (1:49 a.m.): What about her?  
Alex (1:49 a.m.): Didn't you ban us from ever speaking her name?_

_Kara (1:50 a.m.): haha  
Kara (1:50 a.m.): gud 1_

_Alex (2:04 a.m.): What is it?  
Alex (2:15 a.m.): Kara, talk to me.  
Alex (2:21 a.m.): Oh crap  
Alex (2:21 a.m.): I swear I didn't know_

* * *

The aid car and ladder were gone by the time she'd arrived to the station, which took her a 20-minute walk that barely gave her enough time to process everything that had gone on tonight. It seemed like Nia had jinxed them for the rest of their shift; she hoped that the young woman would learn her lesson for the rest of her career as a firefighter.

But apparently, it wasn't too big an emergency, as there was still quite a significant number of staff left in the station when she passed by the pantry, though Nia was notably absent. Lucy had presumably made sure Nia learned her lesson by planning to send her out on every call they got throughout their shift.

Winn, who was lounging in the entertainment room and reading a book, informed her that Sam was in her office when she passed by the room as well. Before proceeding to sit in front of her laptop for the rest of the night, Kara made her way into the locker room first and got a shower that was scalding hot, as if it would scrape away the lingering traces of Lena's stare and voice.

"Did you know?" she asked as soon as she strode into Sam's office, laptop in tow.

Sam looked up from her computer, caught off guard from Kara's interruption. At least she had the decency to look confused before realization came upon her, clearly shown in the guilt in her eyes and the way her mouth opened and closed repeatedly for the next few seconds.

Slowly, the brunette nodded. "Yes," she said.

Kara made her displeasure known by placing the laptop rather loudly on the spare table in the office and kicking at the chair so it would roll out from under it. The scowl on her face was perhaps telling enough, but as she'd been told, she liked to be dramatic.

It may be petty, but she took joy in the way the captain's face wince at every noise Kara made without actually making noise. And then Kara sat down and turned on her laptop. While waiting for it to boot up, she swiveled the chair around to face her superior who was also her sister-in-law. She tightened her jaw and crossed her arms, waiting for Sam to speak up.

"Alex doesn't know."

"She knows now." Sam winced again, probably expecting the doghouse Alex would be putting her once she got home. "Did you expect to keep it a secret forever?" Sam raised her brows and inhaled deeply, shrugging helplessly. "Are you kidding me?"

"She didn't want you to know."

"She works in the same hospital as my sister, who, I might add, is your wife!" Kara exclaimed.

"I told her that."

"We're firefighters. I send patients to that hospital regularly!"

"I told her that too." When Kara was about to launch into more useless explanations, Sam raised her hands to stop her. "I'll admit that she wasn't being very smart about this." Kara scoffed, shaking her head and crossing her arms again, because Lena was the smartest person she knew, even more than her sister and parents. "She's my best friend. I was respecting her wishes."

"I almost couldn't do my job out there."

"I really didn't know she was going to be there."

"You should have at least warned me that she'd be in the same city as us."

Sam sighed again, shaking her head and brushing her fingers through her loose hair. But she didn't say anything else, as if she knew that Kara's anger wouldn't subside no matter how much she justified herself. It would take time, and sooner or later, they would go back to being the sisters-in-law that they were, but for now, Kara just couldn't.

Not when she could hear Lena's voice so clearly in her head. Not when she could picture every fleck of jade in Lena's eyes without making a mistake. Not when she could remember three years ago so vividly in her head, all brought back by one single accidental encounter. Literally.

* * *

"I kind of can't believe that Lena Luthor is working in NC General now," Barry commented, all of them sidling out of the station at the end of their shift.

"I'm betting she's the youngest attending there now. Or anywhere," Caitlin added on.

"Where was she previously?" Winn asked.

"Metropolitan General," Kara cut in, her eyes glued to her shoes as she walked. "She took her MCAT at 20. Graduated Johns Hopkins one year early. Entered a residency program in Metropolitan General and never left. Double board certified in neuro and trauma. Oh, she was married for about two years after passing MCAT with flying colors," she rattled off, unable to stop herself, well aware of the wary gazes that James, Lucy, and Sam were sending her.

She paused her steps when it was apparent that the rest of them had stopped as well, all of whom were gaping at her.

"How do – how do you know that?" Barry asked.

Kara lifted her gaze to the sky, dark blue as the sun was still on its way up. Another day gone by, but what a chaotic one. What a wild one. What a day.

"I'm her ex-wife."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> are you shocked? is it predictable? tell me all your thoughts, all the good and bad - i gotta decide whether this is worth continuing after all.
> 
> oh, and if you're still interested in seeing my work, maybe have a [gander here](https://cyclothimic.tumblr.com/post/611650626423816192/a-struggling-writers-tale), because i can use all the help i can get, or you can catch me at [embettah](https://twitter.com/embettah) on twitter.


	2. none of us will be well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all are fucking awesome. the response on the last chapter was so overwhelmingly good that y'all quite literally inspired me to write more. thank you, thank you, thank you. know that i love y'all. 
> 
> however, i should probably have warned you that there's no set schedule for it. i'll update when i have time to write the words, or when i feel inspired. it could take months to complete. could even take two years.

Yellow. Bright. Lively.

Those were words that could be used to describe National City, as opposed to Metropolis, which was a little grey, still lively, but maybe somewhat too busy. Apart from New York, Metropolis was easily one of the busiest cities in the country. Growing up in it meant getting used to it, but it didn't mean liking it. Metropolis was just too close to Gotham for it to ever be peaceful.

Lena had grown up indifferent to Metropolis; she supposed everyone grew up numb to the place they were born in, unless it was a really nice place or a really bad place. She was born there, studied there, earned her MCAT there, got double-board certified there, and became a renown neurosurgeon with a trauma certificate under her belt.

By all logic, she should have loved it for giving her everything she needed to build her career, but it was nonetheless stale and grey. Then again, if anyone asked her why she'd chosen to move to National City, she still wouldn't know the answer.

One day, she'd picked up a call from the Chief of Surgery at National City General, listening to a job offer that was kind of similar to the one she had at Metropolitan General, and hardly hesitated before she accepted it. She didn't even take a couple of days to consider her prospects; she just confirmed her willingness and signed the letter of appointment once it was emailed to her.

And now she was here, and she still wasn't sure how she felt about it, all the more complicated now that she'd met her ex-wife only one week into her having officially moved her.

"I hate you."

Lena calmly drank her coffee, situated in a calm corner of the café near her new place, which was coincidentally only a block away from Sam's.

"I'm in the doghouse now because of you," Sam tagged on, collapsing on the chair in front of Lena and snatching her coffee away. "Go make it up to me by buying another coffee for yourself. This is mine now," she grumbled, determinedly drinking from the cup and glaring at Lena over the lid.

Lena sighed and remained where she was. She'd just gotten off a 36-hour shift; she didn't need the coffee anyway. "This city is weird."

"Yeah, because it has your ex-wife and ex-sister-in-law in it. Go away," Sam retorted, rolling her eyes and placing the coffee down, though she had a hand wrapped around it protectively. "I slept in the guest room last night. All because of you. I hope you're happy."

"I can't believe that human beings are capable of smiling so much. Even when they're dying in the hospital, they're still smiling. What's in the water?"

"Alex is still not talking to me. Kara is still smashing things around at the station, _also_ not talking to me."

Clenching her jaw at the mention of Kara's name, she opted to look out the window, where there was a mother-daughter pair strolling down the sidewalk, the child holding a balloon and bouncing happily while the mother smiling in indulgence. "Last night, I went to the coffee cart downstairs. It was like 10pm or something, but the guy's still smiling and doesn't seem to care that he's being kept awake because doctors don't stop working. That was weird as hell."

Sam slapped the table between them, so loud that it attracted the attention of their neighbors. Lena turned back to find her best friend glaring at her. "Are you listening to me?" Sam hissed through gritted teeth. "I get it. The city's weird. We'll talk about it when my wife's done banishing me and my sister-in-law isn't trying to kill me with her eyes."

Heaving a deep pocket of air, Lena shook her head and combed her fingers through her hair. "Alex is gonna forgive you in the next couple of days. The woman couldn't bear to be apart from you even if she tried," she dismissed easily, having witnessed the progression of Sam and Alex's relationship over the years. "As for Kara, well, she's a forgiving person. It'll blow over. For you, anyway."

The captain of Station 15 stared at her, studied her, with narrowed eyes and all. Lena didn't relent, keeping their contact as she tapped her fingers on the tabletop. There really was no point in relenting or arguing further. They could all glare at her or throw viper venom at her.

She didn't grow up among the Luthor household without developing some thick skin. She could take it. Besides, the contract had been signed, and she wasn't willing to part with the penalty money in lieu of staying, not after she had decided not to dip into the trust fund her father had set up for her. She was here to stay, even though she had no clue why.

Amidst the hustle and bustle of the morning rush in this café, a girl suddenly laughed, joined by a boy. They were holding hands and probably preparing to go to college, happy as lark.

Lena shook her head and pinched her lips. "This city is weird."

* * *

The truth was she knew that Kara was in National City. She knew that Kara was a firefighter in the same station as Sam. She knew that NC General regularly accepted patients from Station 15, because they operated within the same vicinity. She knew that they would meet eventually.

She just didn't know it would be this soon. After all, her employment had only begun a few days ago, and she'd mainly been in the neurosurgery wing to take over things from the former of Head of Neurosurgery. Hell, she hadn't even actually met Alex yet, even though they worked in the same hospital.

It surprised her just as much to encounter Kara on the roadside, doing her life's work as a firefighter. The very work that had become the tipping point of the end of their marriage.

Seeing Kara again had been – well, Lena couldn't even really put it into words. The glasses, the striking blue eyes, and the face that had set off a thousand ships inside Lena's stomach the first time they met. For a second, it brought her back to that very moment, when a young Kara had decided to drape her jacket over a young Lena's shoulder at a frat party.

When they were still married, Lena detested Kara's occupation. The lack of security and the everlasting fear grasping her chest whenever Kara had to be called out. But now that they were here, their names on the dotted lines of divorce papers that they both had copies of, Lena knew for sure that she was proud of her ex-wife, even though Kara would never know it.

God forbid Kara ever knew that Lena was proud of her achievements, making it as a paramedic and a lieutenant. She would never hear the end of it. She didn't ever wanna hear it.

* * *

Trauma was thrilling. Neurosurgery was challenging. If anything, they were both the opposite of one another. Trauma required snap decisions within a fraction of a second to preserve a patient's life until the next stop. Neurosurgery compelled calmness and precision to make sure that the surgeon wouldn't accidentally fry the patient's brain and render them dead, or worse, in vegetative state.

By all logical senses, it wouldn't make sense for a doctor to want to do both – one simply wouldn't have the patience for the other. Except…Lena did exactly just that.

She had been in her second year of residency at Metropolitan General, and was still finding it hard to decide which field she wanted to enter. Kara hadn't been around, always getting called away to capture snakes or hose down fires, always risking her life every time she ran into a burning building. The blonde simply didn't have the energy to listen to Lena and her troubles every time she came home.

So after they'd divorced and Kara had skipped down – Lena had heard that from Sam, no less – she sat in a bar with her brother, toasting to the rebeginning of her bachelorette life and pretending that she wasn't still mourning the end of her marriage. Her bald, loving brother, who was himself a genius as a medical geneticist, had somehow given her the best advice she'd ever received in her adult life.

"Just go for both. You're smart as fuck, Lena, smarter than me, even. No one ever said you can only choose one," he had said nonchalantly, draining a shot of vodka and gesturing at the bartender to get him more.

And that was it. And here she was. She didn't know if she made history, but she did know she was more than qualified to be here. However, qualified as she was in neurosurgery and trauma, she certainly wasn't qualified in things like meeting her former sister-in-law after three years of stone-cold silence, despite her best friend being married to said former sister-in-law.

"This cannot be happening," Lena muttered to herself after seeing Alex standing outside the ER, all outfitted in the gear.

Alex turned to her, instructions ready at her lips, only to do a doubletake when she saw who was standing next to her. Lena gulped and looked away from Alex' stormy expression, unwilling to let the look in those eyes deter her from her work. Proper work. The business of saving lives.

An aid car pulled up. When the back doors opened, Lena groaned again. This really _could not_ be happening.

Kara took a pause when she recognized the two doctors standing there, waiting for her. For a moment, the siren went on and on and on, but all three of them just stayed rooted on the spot, kind of in similar states of disbelief. Seriously, it was like the universe was pulling some strings just to make lives harder for all of them.

Fortunately, Kara shook herself out of her daze and jumped out from the aid car, pulling the stretcher from the inside. She started rattling off the stats, mainly focused on Alex, which was fine with Lena, truly. She just wanted to get this over with and pretend that she had met her ex-wife in as many weeks. God, it's a nightmare.

"He tried to cut his ear off," Kara said.

"He _what_?" Lena exclaimed, noticing a bag that Kara had produced, a bag that contained a sawed-off ear. "We should – we should call psych," she said and gestured for a resident to grab the bag. "Page plastics too."

"We gave him a sedative, but before that, he claimed he was hearing things. Whatever that means."

"Psych. Definitely psych," Alex agreed.

Kara shrugged, because they all had their roles and hers was just to ensure that the patient stayed alive on the way to the hospital. Now, it was Alex and Lena's responsibility to ensure that the patient _survived_ through it all.

Lena got herself situated on one side of the gurney while Alex on the other. As they rolled the patient inside, Lena had to force every muscle in her to keep her eyes on one direction, to not look at the blonde standing behind them at all.

* * *

Apart from the guy who tried to cut his ear off, the ER was fairly quiet, save for a few strokes and car crashes. All in all, Lena's first rotation in the ER would have been good, if it wasn't for the encounter earlier.

She sat at the nurses' station, deliberately filtering out Alex's voice and presence, even though she knew full well that the woman was the Head of Trauma, and sooner and later, they would have to talk to each other again. Well, she would face that when it came. For now, she would make herself sit here and cycle through the ER's system to familiarize herself. There was no point in being a trauma surgeon at a hospital if she didn't know how their trauma department worked.

About three quarters into the process, a coffee cup slid into her view. Lena would recognize that wedding ring on that hand anywhere, if only because she'd been dragged to pick it out with Sam four years ago. God, she remembered how she'd chastised Sam for deciding to get married so young; little did she know that a year later, she would be proposed to herself.

"Stop being proud and take the damn coffee," Alex ordered stiffly, jerking the coffee at her.

Lena sighed and reluctantly took it, still refusing to look at Alex. "I hope it's not anything stupid like cappuccino or latte," she commented lowly, stirring the liquid with the stirrer.

Alex sat down on a spare chair next to her and made a disgusted noise. "I'm not disgusting like her," she deadpanned. When Lena finally looked, she realized that Alex had been doing the same thing, _not_ looking – no wonder they used to be close. "You could have told me," Alex blurted out after a long moment of just people watching.

Lena shrugged. "I deleted your number."

"That is _harsh_ ," Alex scoffed, shaking her head, an inadvertent smile crawling onto her face. "Seriously?" Lena nodded in affirmation. "Did you block me too?"

The neurosurgeon winced, stirring the coffee a little faster now. At this point, the sugar would evaporate before Lena had even taken a sip, not that science actually worked that way. "Yeah, yeah, I did."

Alex scoffed and shook her head again, completely in a state of disbelief at how straightforward Lena had been and still was. "You're a stone-cold woman, Dr. Lena Luthor."

"Yes, your sister told me that once."

At the mention of Kara – not even her _name_ , for the love of god – they both sobered up. It was as if they were emanating negative energy, just driving away the nurses and emergency medical specialists around them. Well, they would have no choice but approach the trauma surgeons on call today, but otherwise, Lena was fairly appreciative of their attempts to stay away.

She licked her lips and finally drank the dark liquid that had become sustenance in the years since she'd passed her MCAT. An enthusiastic moan escaped her throat once she tasted the bittersweet liquid. Just the way she liked it. Doctors, they were one of a kind and they gotta stick together, as lots of people would say.

"You could have told me," Alex repeated, a somber twist to her lips. "I've been so worried about you."

The reaction was immediate, in which Lena's head snapped up so fast that it was kind of a miracle that she didn't need an ortho to fix it. She stared into the side of Alex's head, burning her gaze into the red hair. Inside, she didn't allow herself to well up at the words, to physically react in a way that would completely destroy her reputation in the hospital before she'd even begun to build one.

She swallowed thickly and cleared her throat loudly. At one point in her life, Alex Danvers had been one of her closest friends. They shared things in common. Hell, she met Kara through Alex, to the latter's utter disgust when she found out that she and Kara had been knocking boots. But then she signed her name the dotted line and walked away, and she didn't allow herself the privilege of keeping the people in her life too.

Divorces didn't work like that.

"I'm not married to Kara anymore," she said, as if Alex didn't already know that.

When she saw the look on Lena's face, Alex smiled sadly. "Come on," she whispered heavily. "You have to know that wasn't the only reason I cared about you."

"But you looked so angry just now. You kicked Sam to the guest room."

Alex nodded and shrugged. "I wasn't angry because you broke my sister's heart." Lena clenched her jaw at that. "I was angry because I spent all these years worrying about you, pretending that my wife wasn't still in touch with you. I was angry because you kicked me to the curb, as if I didn't mean anything after you and Kara fell apart."

The raven-haired woman didn't really have an explanation other than the fact that she was weak and she had been in a state of mind where any reminder of Kara would have been detrimental to her mental state. And Alex, out of all the people they had in common, was the starkest reminder of Kara Danvers.

"Alright," she muttered and fished for her phone. She opened up her contacts and went to the blocked list. "Wait, I forgot your number."

"How many people have you _blocked_?"

"It's not fun being a Luthor," Lena said, shaking her head. Alex looked at her with a combination of skepticism and disbelief. Lena rolled her eyes and pinched her nose with her free hand. "Believe it or not, I missed you too. Kara and Sam never really know what it's like to be in our shoes."

Alex scoffed and nodded in agreement. "That's true." She snatched Lena's phone and scrolled, cursing every few times because really, Lena had spent half her life blocking unwanted numbers – it really was a Luthor thing. "I'm kind of glad that I'm not born with your last name." Lena hummed. Alex made a victorious noise and tapped the phone a few times. "If you block me again, consider us enemies for life," she said, a little jokingly but also a little seriously.

Lena took her phone back and took a look at the screen, stopping as she read Alex's name. It had been three years since she had that name on her phone. And weird as it was, it felt good nonetheless. In no way was her life returning to before, but this…felt a bit like normalcy.

* * *

"You're not stone-cold," Alex announced.

They had both just finished their shifts. It was the crack ass of dawn and they were ready to go home; Alex to her wife, and Lena to her brand new but sparse apartment just a few blocks away. It wasn't embarrassing to change in front of each other; they'd seen one another at their worst, what with having interned at the same hospital before Alex moved away.

Lena made a perfunctory hum, not really listening, more focused on getting the grime out her teeth. One of the worst things about coffee. Alex made sure to make eye contact through the mirror, grave and heavy. Lena slowed down in brushing her teeth, perking her ears up for what would come next.

"I know you said things to each other. Divorced couples always do," the redhead began hesitantly. "I don't really know the details, but what I do know is that you're not stone-cold." She raised her brows, challenging Lena. "You're not."

"I did leave her."

"She left you first."

It was quiet, save for Lena's gargling and spitting it out. She rested her hands on the edges of the sink and almost rested her entire weight of it – it was sturdy enough not to crack under pressure. She watched the water swirl and swirl and swirl. Behind her, Alex was still staring at her.

They were in love. They were happy. And then they were not. Somewhere along their two-year marriage, Lena had grown exhausted and Kara had gotten distant. Somewhere along the lines, Lena figured there was no way she could stay in a marriage where she wasn't looked at anymore.

All this while, she thought no one ever did understand her point of view. Why she'd decided to file the papers and surprise everyone with them. She was just tired. She had always assumed that the blame was laid on her, giving up on their marriage.

Well, at least now she knew that Alex understood. That was a relief, because Kara did leave first.

* * *

Lena had never had a thing for the outdoors. The sun was too bright or the streets were too dark. The bugs were too annoying or the silence was too loud. The people were too happy or the passersby were too rude.

The point was that she had always preferred to stay indoors. To lounge on her couch and read the next book on her reading list. Watch the most pointless reality show on TV and pretend as if they were the best entertainment in the world. Make tea.

But after her first foray into the OR, after finally winning the opportunity to have her hands directly fixing the patient and feeling like she was contributing something to a bleak world, Lena had fostered a habit. Upon clocking off, she wouldn't go home. She would instead make her way to the nearest park and just…take a walk. Without any purpose.

Well, with one purpose. The rays of the sun would burn away the traces of blood on her hands, even though she'd washed it all away. The very things she didn't like about the outdoors would remind herself that not everyone was waiting to go to hospital to be operated on. They were still alive and healthy and she wouldn't have their blood on her hands.

Being a doctor wasn't without perks. The pay was good. The thrill was exciting. The Hippocratic Oath kept her on her toes. Sometimes though, a patient would pass away or worsen in their conditions, and she would be reminded that she wasn't a superhero. Lena was just a human being who had the skills to fix others to the best of her ability.

"Oh, hi."

Lena stopped and turned away from the children playing on the playground, though the sun had already set and the only illumination they had was the streetlamps. Kara was standing in front of her, hands stuck in her coat pockets and a dumbstruck expression on her face.

Lena imagined she looked the same.

"Hey," she gasped, blinking rapidly. "Wow, I haven't seen you in civilian clothing in so long."

"Well, it's been three years."

"It's been much longer than that."

It was true. In their last days together, when everything had gone from bad to worse, they'd only seen each other in passing, and Kara had always been in her uniform, albeit in Metropolis system. Hell, Kara hadn't even bothered to take off her uniform when they'd signed the papers, heading back to the station immediately after.

Sheepishly, hands reached up to adjust square-rimmed glasses. A lot of things about Kara had changed – her shape, her mannerisms, the fullness to her face. Those glasses remained the same. Somehow, Lena found comfort in that, as if it would have mattered at this point. Go figure.

"What are you doing here?" Lena asked.

"What? A girl can't even take walks now?" Kara teased.

Lena chuckled and joined Kara's side, starting to walk in the direction where she'd come from. "No, I just – you've never liked taking walks with me."

"But I still did."

"Yeah, but you didn't like it."

"I did."

Lena scoffed, shaking her head. For some reason, a sense of frustration began to rise in her chest. That seemed to be a pattern as well whenever they were in each other's presence. Even when they were saving that guy in the road accident, Lena had been frustrated, especially when Kara had asked for her credentials.

She didn't debate further though. After months and months of arguing with Kara, she knew that they would only both end up walking away and freezing each other out. And tonight, Lena was too tired to even bother. Honestly, she should have just said hi and went about her way. She didn't know why she'd chosen to walk by Kara's side to a direction where her place was definitely not.

"I picked up on it," Kara muttered, playing with her glasses again. "I came to National City and I just – one day, I just found myself coming here and walking after work. And I never stopped."

A heartbeat. "Funny," Lena deadpanned. "You used to show me exactly how much you disliked it whenever I made you do it with me."

"That's not fair. I was tired and I wanted to stay home."

"You were _always_ tired," Lena spat out, letting the frustration get the better of her. They had both stopped in their steps. "That's the thing, Kara. You were _always_ tired. Tired from your job. Tired of having to do chores. Tired of being in that house. Tired of _me_."

Kara swiveled to face her, her mouth opened, like she had a litany of angry words to throw back in Lena's face. But then something stopped her, maybe something on Lena's face – honestly, Lena didn't know.

She had stopped knowing anything about Kara a long time ago, despite having been one of the few people who knew to read Kara best.

"I did love you," Kara settled, coming out low and weak.

Another heartbeat. Lena hated it. She hated how Kara hadn't been in her life for three whole fucking years and _yet_ , her heart still wanted to beat for her in the most random of moments. She hated that after three fucking years, she still couldn't get herself to completely hate her ex-wife, even though she'd read a lot of books how that was common between divorced couples.

"I know you did. But somewhere along the way, you got tired of even that," Lena whispered back, losing the vitriol from earlier. She sighed and shook her head. "Enjoy your walk, Kara. I'm gonna find another park."

She made herself walk away. Her dignity had been a lost cause in the course of their relationship. But now that she'd picked herself up and got on with her life, she refused to lose it once again front of the same woman who'd taken it away from her in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my parents are divorced. i know what i'm talking about. but i'd still love hear your thoughts. all of them. good or bad. i like it when people yell at me in the comments
> 
> oh, and if you're still interested in seeing my work, maybe have a [gander here](https://cyclothimic.tumblr.com/post/611650626423816192/a-struggling-writers-tale), because i can use all the help i can get, or you can catch me at [embettah](https://twitter.com/embettah) on twitter.


	3. the battle that goes on

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i gotta be honest: i lost steam for this story. when i wrote the last chapter, i had a clear idea of how this one was gonna go, but then when i sat in front of the word document to keep going, it suddenly all disappeared. i had to take a break for a few days and come back to crank it out. and here you go!
> 
> now, read, ponder, and enjoy!

"Don't hate her."

"What?"

Kara played with the label of her beer bottle, tearing it off fraction by fraction, letting the moisture help out a bit in the process. She refrained from shooting pleading looks at her sister, choosing instead to focus on the diminishing logo of the horrible draft beer that Alex was unusually fond of.

It was a good thing that the fire escape was barely lit in the night, so her sister wouldn't be able to read her so easily. Sam was inside, showering off a day of grime and sweat. Instead of washing herself off as well, Kara had liberated a bottle of beer from the fridge and sat on the fire escape, joined by Alex not so long later.

"Don't hate her," she repeated, lifting the beer to her lips and taking a healthy gulp.

Alex was quiet for a moment, studying Kara's profile. "Is that a request or a declaration?"

At that, Kara could only smirk sardonically. No humor whatsoever. She leaned against the railing and rested the bottle against her forehead, condensation gathering on her skin. "Request. Declaration. Both," she corrected, squinting at herself and shrugging. "I don't know. Is there a difference? Is it important?" She clenched her jaw. "I saw her."

"Yeah, I know."

Kara shook her head and cleared her throat, fiddling with the label once more. "No, I saw her again. Two days ago."

"Where?"

"The park."

A pause, and then, " _Oh_."

Because Alex and Sam – and James and Lucy – were the only ones who knew about the shared habit – well, not exactly shared, more like a habit that Kara inexplicably picked up after the divorce. Their colleagues knew that Kara liked to take a walk in the park after work, but none of them really knew why. They just saw it as it was.

She liked to lie to herself and say that she didn't know why she'd picked up the habit. But late in the night, when she was lying in her giant bed alone, the left side cold and empty, she would be honest with herself.

Five stages of grief. Five stages of the emotional turmoil she'd gone through to grieve her failed marriage to a woman she'd loved with her whole heart. Five stages of heartache at the understanding that she'd given her heart to Lena Luthor and there really was no way of her ever loving anyone else the same way again.

In the beginning she couldn't make herself go back to a barren apartment without a wife, the wife she'd left behind in Metropolis – denial. After that, she just kept walking, because she and Lena had so many arguments over her sullenness whenever she relented to Lena's pestering, so here she was, _walking_ – anger. Subsequently, her feet took her to the park, and part of her was thinking that if she could just keep walking, maybe Lena would be able to see and she would come back – bargaining. And then, she realized that if she went home, maybe she would down a whole bottle of sleeping pills or drink a whole carton of beer and that just wouldn't do, so she took herself out to the park and forced herself to see people – depression.

Finally, it dawned on her that Lena was truly gone. She'd uprooted her life and moved here to National City, and Lena stayed in Metropolis. That didn't stop her from walking though; she kept at it, because what else could she do? At least this way, she could pretend that the shadow grip on her bicep was real and the deep chuckles weren't imaginations. Acceptance.

"She hates me," Kara said, distinctly remembering what it was like to see Lena at the park. She could hear the shrillness of Lena's voice as she yelled at Kara. "Can't say I blame her."

"I could never hate her. Lena's a good egg," Alex announced. "Do you hate her?"

Kara chuckled darkly and drank more beer. "I couldn't hate her if I tried," she replied and lifted her shoulders in a shrug. Not even in her angriest moment could Kara bring herself to hate Lena. "Do you think I got tired of loving her?" she asked, frowning deeply at the thought, at the words that kept bouncing around in her head.

Alex pondered the question for a long moment. So long that Kara figured her sister had fallen asleep, but she didn't turn around. She just stared at the apartment building on the opposite side of the building, watching a family playing Monopoly through the window.

"I think –" Alex started, a hint of hesitation in her enunciation "– that you two could have tried a little harder." Kara tightened her grip on the railing, the rust staining her palm. "You didn't get tired of loving her, Kara. You got tired of trying to convince her that you do."

* * *

Her mother – birth mother, that was – didn't have a loving relationship with her father. They both came from families that prioritized benefits over feelings, and any offspring was only pawns for them to trade for more benefits. Unfortunately for Alura and Jordan, they were born into those families and had no free will to dictate who they were going to spend the rest of their lives with.

Kara knew that her parents had never truly loved each other, but they were best friends. The best of friends, attached at the hip and never without the other. Alura had a butler to love her faithfully, and Jordan had a string of girlfriends who had to sign NDAs whenever they walked out the door. The marriage wasn't what they wanted, but they worked with it.

Even when they'd died – a hit-and-run, and they never caught the perpetrator – the authorities found them holding hands, because they may not have been in love, but they loved each other deeply.

Kara had never really looked towards them for relationship advice; they weren't exactly in a position to tell her how to maintain passion and adoration in a relationship, much less a marriage. But she bore witness to the interactions between Alura and their butler, and somehow, even in her youth, she comprehended that those two were really in love.

It was at a dinner. Jordan had gone off to Uzbekistan for a business meeting, so it was just her and Alura, the butler standing just by the door, loyally waiting for his mistress to finish her meal.

"How do you know you're really in love?" Kara had asked, drinking the hot chocolate that the chef had made for her.

Alura threw a knowing glance at her lover, who smiled indulgingly. "You'll know, Kara. One day, you'll meet someone, handsome or beautiful, and you'll think that they're the most radiant being on the face of the planet. And you'll know that…it's them. You're gonna spend the rest of your life loving them."

In the time that Kara had spent with her parents, they'd imparted many advices to her, but this was one that Kara kept with her. She went about her life. Got adopted by the Danvers. Learned a new way of life that didn't involve butlers or maids. Found a passion in fires and being on the frontlines.

And she kept that advice in her heart. Listening to her when she felt the loneliest. Trusting that she wouldn't fall into the trap that her parents did. Believing that one day, she would find the most radiant being on the planet.

And one day, she believed she did. Mid-August when she was 20, not really winter but not really autumn either. Torrents of rain that had just gone on and on and on. It was a miracle that Metropolis didn't flood under the torrential attack.

Kara had found refuge under the awning of a bus stop because she'd forgotten an umbrella in her rush to class that morning. It had been times like these that she wished her sister had stayed in Metropolis, who'd be able to come fetch her home. The awning didn't help much either, because the rain was heavy and there were holes and Kara had to really make herself as small as possible so she wouldn't get wet.

"Where are you headed to?" That voice brought shudders down Kara's eardrums and then past her nerve ends, setting fire that she didn't know she would never be able to put out.

And when she looked up, there it was. The most radiant being on the face of the planet, holding an umbrella over their heads to block off the rain that slipped past the holes in the awning. Bare makeup but _vibrant_ red lipstick. Briefly, the blonde wondered what it would be like to kiss those lips and touch those locks.

"I – um, McKinley building," she muttered, but forced herself to be loud enough to surpass the roar of the rain.

"I'll walk you there."

Kara blinked, thinking that the droplets on her glasses were fooling her, and that this was just a hallucination. Alura had to be lying and it was simply impossible for a girl like this to exist in a world like this. "Are you – you're serious?"

The girl's brows rose; it would have been scary if not for the smile on her lips as well, bemused and teasing. "I wouldn't be standing here, risking my umbrella being torn to pieces, if I weren't sure," she said, and it sounded so warm that the coldness of the weather was nearly nullified.

Kara stood up, dried off her glasses on her jacket sleeve, and picked up her stuff, nodding enthusiastically all the way. "Let me…" she murmured, drifting off as her fingers wrapped around the handle of the umbrella and holding it. "It's the least I could do." She licked her lips and allowed a moment to be struck by the eyes that locked onto her. "I'm – I'm Kara."

The girl nodded and introduced herself, "Lena. I wish we'd met under better circumstances."

"I'd say this is perfect," Kara opinionated as they started walking in the direction of her dorm.

The next twenty minutes had been spent avoiding getting splashed by cars and chatting about their classes at NCU. Kara had been grateful that her hands were occupied – one with her laptop and books, and the other with the umbrella – because otherwise, she wouldn't have stopped herself from wrapping an arm around Lena.

But she knew, right then, at just 20 years old, that she was going to marry this girl, the most radiant being on the face of the planet. Alura was right in that sense – she did know that it was Lena, she just didn't know that it wouldn't be for the rest of her life.

* * *

What would possess a group of teenagers to pour liquid nitrogen into a house pool? Actually, what would possess a group of teenagers with barely a mature brain to _purchase_ a container of liquid nitrogen in the first place? And what would possess a group of teenagers to _jump_ into said liquid-nitrogen-pool when basic chemistry in schools taught them explicitly _not_ to mess around with liquid nitrogen?

Collective idiocy, Lucy had deduced. And Kara wasn't usually a mean person. She was rather kind and openminded, as a majority of Station 15 would agree with. She wasn't judgemental at all and she liked giving people the benefit of the doubt.

But this time around, there just was no room of benefit for any doubt to given. Collective idiocy, it was as simple as that. When a group of stupid teenagers came together, they would form one big stupid brain, and they would do hugely stupid things, like pouring a vat of liquid nitrogen into a pool and thinking it would go well _at all_.

"I regret ever persuading the Battalion Chief to let you into my station," Sam complained, checking Kara's vitals and wrapping a bazillion towels around her to fight the coldness from leaping into the pool.

"Kind of didn't have a choice," Kara stuttered between rattling teeth, because _god_ , it was so cold. "I'm a firefighter, remember? It's my job to save people at the expense of my own life," she continued, still stuttering. "Even when they were _exceptionally stupid_ ," she added, deliberately louder so the teenagers could hear her while panicking over their friends who'd nearly frozen to death in liquid nitrogen.

She usually wasn't so mean, but in her defense, she _had_ just leaped into the pool to rescue a teenager who'd asphyxiated from excess liquid nitrogen. And now here she sat, freezing her ass off and kind of still fighting to even do the basic human function. Breathing. Her lungs felt compressed with every intake and suffocated with every exhale.

"You're talking a lot for someone who nearly suffocated," Sam grumbled and picked her up, loading her into the back of the aid car with the teenager who had passed out again. "Do _not_ come back to the station unless you're cleared by the professionals."

"I _am_ a professional."

"You're a paramedic. You can't even do a surgery. Be quiet and let a proper doctor check you out," Sam retorted, pointing a meaningful finger in her direction.

The lieutenant would have protested if it wasn't for the fatigue that gripped her bones and never let go. She sat by the teenager with Barry driving the aid car, and she very lamely glared at the kid, wondering how stupid one could be to do something like this and where the hell her parents had been.

Somehow, she ended up sitting in front of none other than Lena Luthor on a bed in the emergency ward. She didn't know she got here – maybe the liquid nitrogen was really getting to her head. But when she finally regained awareness of her surrounding, her ex-wife was there, sitting on a stool in front of her, curtains drawn around them.

"Um," she mumbled, blurry vision locked onto her ex-wife's name tag and _nothing else_.

"Welcome back," Lena replied, a mild but playful smile on her lips. "I need you to…" She gestured at Kara's uniform and held up the chest piece of her stethoscope.

"Oh, right."

Weakly and breathlessly, Kara began her efforts to peel off the uniform. She would have asked for Lena's help three years ago, but this wasn't three years ago. It took some time, but she eventually got down to her shirt and lifted it enough for Lena to reach her sternum. If she had a clearer head, she wouldn't have missed out on the way the doctor balked slightly at seeing her abs.

A hiss escaped her lips when Lena's fingers inevitably contacted her skin. "Still cold hands," she complained with a grimace.

Lena only hummed in response and listened to Kara's heartbeat. There once was a time when she would only need to lay her head on Kara's chest to do so, but again, this wasn't three years ago.

This was the way they worked, one of the reasons that Lucy had always touted as the pillar of their relationship. How they complemented each other with their differing body temperatures, one exceedingly warm and one abnormally cold. Kara kind of forgot about all that in the three years they'd been divorced.

"Lungs sound normal. You do seem really tired. I'm gonna order a CT scan just to be sure," Lena said after she'd done all the tapping and shining. "Sam texted me earlier." Kara groaned, and Lena smiled mischievously. "It's my professional opinion that you rest here for the rest of the day until someone from the station or your sister comes to pick you up."

"My boss and my ex-wife conspiring against me. Why didn't I see that coming?"

"The liquid nitrogen, perhaps. I'm gonna prescribe you some oxygen in the meantime, just to get sufficient blood back to your brain." Kara nodded in acquiescence. "There'll be an intern watching you at all times, so don't even think about escaping."

"You're horrible."

"Yes, you've told me that once or twice."

Kara's eyes snapped up to find green ones locked on her. A combination of amusement and recollection of painful memories. Gone was the animosity from the park, when Lena had seemed like she would explode from the emotions pent up in her at the idea of Kara picking up a habit that she'd assumed Kara hated. Right now, they were both just here, two ex-wives in the same city as one another, and they couldn't do anything about it.

She sighed, too tired to even explain herself in a situation like this. Besides, what good would explaining anything do for her in current circumstances?

"Is that the same stethoscope?" she asked, pointing at the object hanging around Lena's neck.

"And what if it was?"

"I'm proud of you. I don't think I ever got to tell you that."

Her ex-wife didn't speak a word for the next few moments, still situated by the curtain. They eyed one another, so much history filling up the small confinements that would air out once the curtain was drawn back.

"I suppose we were both too resentful of each other's careers to feel proud of anything," Lena relented, grip tightening on the cloth. "I'm proud of you too, Lieutenant Danvers." They smiled at each other. "Now, rest well, Lieutenant. Otherwise, a certain Dr. Danvers in this hospital will strangle you for disobeying a doctor's orders."

Despite the stress on her lungs and the sleepiness overtaking her eyelids, Kara still managed a laugh at the added remark, and she fell asleep to the small grin that Lena had sent her way before leaving the bay.

* * *

Five hours. She slept five hours. The emergency ward was always busy and the intercom never really stayed quiet. Kara, however, kept sleeping for five hours. She would have kept sleeping if it wasn't for Alex nearly pouring water in her face to wake her up. Alex, who also looked pretty unhappy, glass of water firmly gripped in her hand, and not dressed up in her scrubs and white coat.

"Why couldn't you have stayed on the path of journalism?" were the first words out of Alex's mouth once Kara had regained enough consciousness to sit up straight.

Kara chuckled and rubbed the slumber out of her eyes. "Well, the apartment building opposite my dorm went on fire once –"

"Yeah, I know the story," Alex snapped, depositing the glass on the bedside table. She grabbed Kara's forearm and gently hauled her off the bed. "Come on. I'm taking you home." She helped her sister into her jacket, folding up her jacket over her arm. "You're sleeping in the guest room. I'm not letting you go home alone."

"What – Lena said I'm fine. My CT scan was fine."

" _Liquid nitrogen_ , Kara. I'm gonna make you dinner and you're gonna sleep in the guest room. End of story."

"Dictator."

"Do you want me to call mom?"

That shut Kara up right there. She hustled out of the hospital, half supported by Alex. The car ride was quiet, filled up only with Taylor Swift's latest album. One of the proudest moments in Kara's life would be her success in convincing Alex that Taylor Swift was one of the best song artists of all time.

She almost dozed back to sleep a couple of times during the ride, woken up by Alex's interrupting coughs. She wanted to hate her sister for it, but part of her was also grateful, because if she kept sleeping, she wouldn't be able to sleep tonight. And liquid nitrogen or not, a woman still gotta go to work in the morning to earn her keep.

When they entered Alex's apartment, Kara realized that James and Lucy had also joined them. The former preparing dinner with Sam while the latter just enjoying the booze, waiting to be fed. She blinked at the sight of her old friends, but welcomed their cheers and subsequent hugs to her survival.

She took her time showering, lathering every inch of her body with soap and shampoo to wash away the chemicals that must have clung to her body throughout the day. The heat of the shower was temptation itself, calling for her to just stay there under its violent but soothing beat.

And when she closed her eyes, green eyes emerged, electrifying and hardly kind. It had been three years, but she could recall every single fleck of gunmetal that floated among the jade. It was a damning thing, really, to have all these memories come back to her after three years of not thinking about the divorce paper laminated in the back of her drawer. If she could ever hate Lena, it would be because the woman had never really found the will to leave her mind.

She heaved a sigh, crediting the thoughts to the mist, and got out of the shower. Patted herself dry. Put on some clothes that she'd left behind in her sister's guest room. Rubbed away any lingering makeup. Went outside. Froze in her steps.

"Lena."

The doctor removed herself from James' embrace, bright smile on her lips and a hint of tears in her eyes. "Hey, Kara. How are you feeling?"

"I – um, fine. Feeling much better," she stammered, throwing a minute glare at her sister before looking back to her ex-wife. "Right. You're here." Lena nodded in affirmation. "Right," Kara murmured, clearing her throat.

This was…weird. It was one thing to meet again due to a car accident. One thing to approach Lena herself that night at the park, which really didn't do much to clear the foggy air between them. One thing to run into Lena at the hospital and the park and the hospital again. Those were all accidents. Pranks that the universe had pulled on her just for shits and giggles.

This, however, was clearly orchestrated. There was no way that Sam and Alex would just bring people home without informing another, especially not _Lena_. For all Kara knew, Alex was probably the one who invited Lena over for dinner.

Just moments ago, she had been imagining Lena in the shower. Not that the rest of them knew that, but for some reason, Kara felt a smidge of guilt at the idea. She shouldn't be imagining Lena in any scenario at all, not when they'd taken off the rings and got out of each other's lives for good.

Clearly sensing the awkwardness that permeated the room, Lucy took Lena's arm and dragged her to the living room to catch up. While James and Sam were busy making dinner, Kara took the opportunity to drag her own sister back into the guest room, locking the door for good measure.

"I can explain."

"Then explain."

Alex hummed, doubtful. "Not now, though." Kara frowned. "Sam and I have a legitimate reason to do this. Trust me." Kara raised her brows, silently questioning Alex's instruction. "You'll know later."

"You couldn't have warned me?"

"I didn't wanna put too much stress on you after you'd just woken up."

"Well, I'm plenty stressed, regardless."

The redhead placed her hands on Kara's arms, squeezing. Perhaps she meant it reassuringly, but all Kara felt was a squeeze and an irrational peak in her chest, because there was a woman out there giving her the most confusing emotion roller-coaster that she'd ever been through in her life, and she just wanted to have dinner and get some sleep and go to work tomorrow.

This day was not going well for her at all. Half of her wanted to isolate herself out on the fire escape and drink a couple bottles of Bud Light before calling it a night, pretending that Lena wasn't near her in a social capacity, in a room filled with people who used to see them as the sappiest couple they'd ever seen in their lives.

Sure, it had been…nice to see Lena again earlier today. The past few times they saw each other had been entirely too filled with past grievances and emotions for them to be able to be calm in one another's presence. She didn't blame Lena for blowing up at her in the park at all. Or herself for blowing up at Lena the first night they'd seen each other again. They both had things to say and they managed to get at least some of them of their chests.

And earlier had been…cordial. They were talking and even joking with another. Kara wasn't totally blind to the fact that the air wasn't completely cleared, but it felt like a step. And if they were gonna be in the same city hanging in the same social circles, baby steps were always welcomed.

Except she hadn't expected to go from a professional setting to a casual one so fast.

There was simply no time to prepare. Brace herself for the eventual integration of their lives, professionally or socially.

Once upon a time, she would have walked out of the room and wrapped her arms around Lena without anything stopping her. This time around, she would be walking out of the room, nodding at Lena, and keeping her hands firmly in the pockets of her sweatpants. Impulses were a damned thing, and after Lena had left, let's just say that Kara's impulse control had dropped immensely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not sure i'm too happy with this one, but i couldn't figure out what bones that i have to pick, so um, this is what you get.
> 
> there's actually more that i wanted to include, but that would make this chapter entirely too long, and if there's one thing i hate, it's chapters that are so fucking long that you just grow tired of the fic all together. and that's the last thing i want.
> 
> but really, per usual, i would appreciate your thoughts, negative or positive. i didn't get as much feedback last chapter as i would have liked. after all, if you're not honest with me, i can't improve. 
> 
> oh, and if you're still interested in seeing my work, maybe have a [gander here](https://cyclothimic.tumblr.com/post/611650626423816192/a-struggling-writers-tale), because i can use all the help i can get, or you can catch me at [embettah](https://twitter.com/embettah) on twitter.


	4. all healthcare is personal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg, can you believe? an update in a week? i don't know what came on to me.
> 
> now, read, ponder, and enjoy!

Here was the thing about having once been married to and divorced from a firefighter: the fear never really subsided. Subsiding was never an option, because caring for someone didn't just disappear overnight, certainly not just because she'd scribbled her initials over the dotted line and walked away.

Over the last three years, while Kara Danvers had faded, she wasn't completely transparent. At least once a day, Lena would wonder. Even though she'd built up a decent resistance to asking for information about the blonde from Sam, she still wondered. Kara's face floated in her mind, and she would always wonder.

Was Kara still alive? Was she doing okay? Did she eat as well as she used to when they were two sappy people happily in love, never fathoming the idea that they would fall out of love one day in the future?

Was Kara happy?

And when she saw Kara wrapped up in a woolen blanket, seated in the back of the aid car, Lena felt it again. The anxiety and fear that always came with caring for a firefighter. In her head, she could see it – a condominium building alight with fire, a shop lot filled up with smoke, and something or other. She hadn't ever imagined a pool of liquid nitrogen per se, but Lena was smart enough to at least comprehend that Kara must have done something foolish in line of her job.

For example, jumping into said pool to rescue a stupid teenager.

It took immense effort to not descend into the state of a hysterical ex-wife. Compose herself and become the best doctor that she had always been. Two interns were directed to deposit Kara in the chair, and without even acknowledging the look that Alex had been sending her, Lena rolled her ex-wife to an emergency bay, pulling the curtains to make sure that no one interrupted.

She was cold. Composed. Even friendly to a point. But all the while, she wondered. Why was she still so afraid?

* * *

"I heard you treated Kara."

"I was available."

"You okay?"

Lena sat in her office, having finished her round in the ER and returned to the neurology wing to…specialize. In thirty minutes, she had to operate on a kid with a benign brain tumor that could turn malignant if it wasn't extracted immediately. The tumor was minuscule, but spread around nerve ends that no common neurosurgeon would touch it.

Not Lena. The raven-haired woman relished in this sort of things, challenge and ingenious. It wasn't that Lena liked to brag; her brother did that enough for her. No, Lena wasn't doing it for bragging rights; she was doing it to save a child's life, and because she could. She may very well be the only one in this whole damn country who could. The fact that it would put her on the front pages of some medical magazines didn't hurt either.

And yet. And _yet_ , Lena couldn't stop thinking about her. The woman who was resting away in the ER, not a care in the world, unknowing the turmoil she had wrought in Lena's brain just for putting herself in danger, like she always did.

"Always," she replied, playing with her scrub cap, refusing to acknowledge its origin. "I've never been not okay."

Sam hummed. "That's what I'm afraid of."

Lena rolled her eyes. "Just because you're married to a Danvers doesn't mean you get to be dramatic too," she drawled.

"You were married to one too."

Fingers stopped, hovering over the frayed strings. Lena had repaired the cap many times over the past three years, but she had never had the heart to toss it away. Just like the stethoscope, it was a reminder of love. Once upon a time, she had had a taste of enormous, _great_ love, however short-lived it had been.

"Come to my place tonight. I'm cooking."

"Why?"

"Just come."

"Will Kara be there?"

Sam hesitated. Then, "Yes."

The door to her office opened, and in came the head of one of the residents, who would assist in the surgery. Lena held up a hand with a nod and stood up from her chair. Inside, she was grateful to Sam for always being honest with her, even if it would scare Lena away.

"Text me the details."

Without a word of goodbye, the red button was pressed and the phone was tossed into a drawer. Lena walked out of her office, wearing a scrub cap patterned with clouds and adorable little bears. No Luthor would ever be caught dead wearing something like that, and Lena wouldn't have either, until her ex-wife had gifted it to her during the white coat ceremony.

But still, regardless of the cute scrub cap or the lingering presence of the blonde just a few floors away, Lena tucked them all into little boxes. Mind palaces were good for these things. She had a kid to save, after all.

* * *

Kara was expected. In fact, Lena had spent about thirty minutes pacing in her office – thirty minutes after her shift – second guessing her decision to agree to Sam's invitation so quickly, because she'd expected Kara to be there. Sam had pretty much confirmed it, and she didn't imagine Alex had changed much from the overly concerned older sister that she'd been before they parted ways.

One message from Sam, gentle but insistent, became the lightning rod that pushed her out the doors and into a cab. Headed for Alston Avenue, where a nondescript apartment building housing the Arias-Danvers was located. Her nerves _wrought_ with tension and anxiety, but her legs found their way inside the elevator and down the hallway. Her hand was even strong enough to form three firm knocks on the heavy wooden door.

All with the expectation that Kara Danvers would be there.

What she hadn't expected was the sight of her old friends, all gathered in the kitchen, bright smiles and reminiscent eyes directed at her. Warm and scared all over again.

"My god, Luthor, do you age?" Lucy demanded, a blinding grin stretching her lips as she lounged on the stool and twirled a bottle of beer in her hands.

"It's really good to see you again, Lena," James said warmly as he didn't even hesitate to tug Lena into a bear hug that he was famous for, all encompassing and safe.

Three years ago, she'd walked away from Kara, and these people by extension. Call her cold-hearted, call her heartless even, but she genuinely thought it was the best decision she could make for her own wellbeing. Alex, James, and Lucy were all strings, complicated and immensely entangled with the reddest string in her life.

It perhaps wouldn't be an overstatement to say that people might find easier to disentangle cable cords than the lives of the Danvers and co. And Lena loved them, like a person would love anyone who'd been there for them throughout their youth and served as pillars so strong that they could just lean on them without worrying of hurting worse.

But at the end of the day, Lena had to get away. She had to cut off all ties and hide in Ireland for a month to heal the wounds of being left behind the one person she loved most, and she couldn't do that if she had to see them – all stark and blinding reminders of how they were all there to witness the buildup and downfall of her marriage.

She hadn't seen them in three years. She'd thought they would have grown to hate her for being so ruthless. But here she was, welcomed so warmly, like not a day had passed.

There simply was no helping the way her eyes welled up immediately upon James' embrace. Not bothering to hide the way she didn't hesitate to wrap her own arms around his big posture and taking it all in as much as she could, embarrassing as it looked.

"It's really good to see you too," she whispered, breathing in the musky aftershave that he'd been using since college.

"Lena."

The doctor momentarily froze in James' arms before making herself retreat from his embrace, turning her eyes to the blonde firefighter frozen in the hallway. Reluctant smile pulled on her lips.

Lena asked Kara how she was, because it was the ethical thing to do, and because she also really wanted to know. She'd been wondering the moment she learned that Alex had turned up to bring Kara home. There was relief in seeing the fuzziness gone from Kara's eyes and that she was standing upright and steady. Lena didn't wanna think about what that meant.

* * *

"We're adopting," Alex announced after serving the dessert, holding tightly to Sam's hand on the tabletop, bright smile on her face.

She looked happy. They both did.

"That's why we asked you to dinner. We wanted to tell you first," Alex continued, her eyes darting between all of them, sort of in a panic.

Kara's silverware _dropped_ , clattering all over the place. Fork on the floor. Spoon hanging in the air. Vanilla ice cream dripping on her sweatpants. It was just a mess. But Kara didn't seem to care. Simply gaped at her sister and sister-in-law. And extraordinarily, expression completely unreadable.

To be fair, Lena was feeling just about the same. Her face was stony, but her eyes locked onto her best friend. Her usually busy brain, always muddling with medical theories and extraordinary methods to save brains, was unusually quiet. Came to a sudden halt with a loud screech. Wheels just stopped turning.

Seeing the shocked silence of the two of them, Lucy seemed to have decided to jump into the fray, asking, "Does Eliza know?"

"We're calling her tomorrow," Alex replied.

"What do you need us to do?" James asked.

"Just be here for us. God knows we're gonna need all the support we can get."

And then they faded into silence again. At this point, all eyes had turned to Lena and Kara, wary and anticipatory. Thus far, the two of them were the only ones who hadn't said a word, one gaping at her sister and one staring at her best friend. They were all very important people in each other's lives, but these four especially.

Attached at the hips before they met their partners – or former partner. And then attached at the hips once more, only four of them together. Three years ago, no one would have thought that they could be split apart, until one of them splintered and ran away.

Then at the same time, Lena and Kara jumped to their feet, still wordless. Lena rounded the table to Sam, Kara rounded the table to Alex, and they hugged the couple, because that was all they could do. She wasn't sure about Kara, but that was all Lena wanted to do at this moment, for giving her this gift that she had never fathomed in her entire life.

"I love you," Sam muttered in her ear, wholeheartedly accepting Lena's rarely enthusiastic hug.

Lena hummed, too choked up to even say anything. She couldn't say anything. She could only hug her best friend and be happy for her.

* * *

A week ago, the agency had contacted the Danvers-Arias and informed them of a child they thought would be suitable for the couple. A five-year-old orphan, who'd rotated between a few foster houses for the past year after her parents had unfortunately passed away in a plane crash. A little girl named Ruby, who had an affinity for purple and looked like she had the fullest cheeks on the face of the planet, based on the photos Sam had shown them.

And in about a month, Lena was gonna be an aunt. To a little girl, who would most assuredly have the most protective and adoring family on earth, because there was no way Auntie Lena would ever let Ruby go a day without knowing that she was loved, orphan or not. Neither would Auntie Kara. Their childhoods simply wouldn't allow them to.

Still though, Lena still needed to parse it all. Process the words and images. Completely absorb the idea and the _fact_ of a niece coming her way. So even though the sky had started to pour in the night, blurring out the city and making lives just a tad more dangerous for the flimsy human beings below, Lena still stubbornly climbed out to the fire escape, holding onto a bottle of beer like her life depended on it.

"It's raining."

"Yes, I'm aware."

Raindrops pattered on her legs as she sat with the appendages hanging out the edge. She would say she liked the riskiness of it all if not for the railing that would keep her safe. Plus, a firefighter had come out to join her, so she couldn't be safer, really.

When Kara joined her, though keeping a certain distance between them so they wouldn't touch, Lena couldn't help but remark, "It's raining."

"Yes, but I'm a firefighter. I'm like immune to this kind of stuff."

"Remember that time when you got sick because you were stuck under the rain for hours, trying to save a cat from a tree?"

"I was building my immunity then."

"Remember when you jumped into liquid nitrogen this morning?"

"That's not rain. That's actual poison."

Lena chuckled, shaking her head and sipping more of her beer. Her eyes roved over to Kara, taking in her profile and comparing the smile on the blonde's face to the smile etched in her memories. Nothing much had changed, but for the fact that Kara had definitely gotten bulkier over the years and her smile had dimmed slightly.

The doctor didn't want to fathom the idea that their divorce could be the cause of that dimmer smile. Not exactly dark, but the room was certainly not as bright as it used to be in the presence of that smile. Lena used to live for it, doing all the silly things just so she could see it. How silly of her. How naïve. How utterly and desolately young.

In the living room behind them, James and Lucy were still fawning over the album that Sam and Alex had gathered on a little girl that they'd only ever met once. Laughing and shrieking and sometimes crying. That would probably go on for hours, never mind that they all still had jobs to do in the morning to earn their keep; to take care of an adopted child.

"You're gonna be an aunt," Lena offered. "Congratulations."

"So will you," Kara replied good-naturedly. "So congratulations to you too."

Their bottles came together, clinking nicely, muffled only by the pouring rain, still pattering all over the city.

"Look at us."

"Two divorcees, about to be an aunt to the same little girl."

Few seconds passed. Honks and shrieks permeated the air, alongside chatters and laughter from inside the apartment they'd escaped. And then the two women hanging on the fire escape burst into their own bout of laughter. The kind that could tear apart your stomachs and bring tears to your eyes, because good lord, the fucking _irony_.

What was funny was that ironic as it was, there was nothing weird about this. Basic familiarity boiled down to the very essence of it – two women, who used to be inseparable, having a laugh, like old maidens in an old folks' home, because life was just fucked like that. Lena should have never doubted its tendency to take a shit on everything just to see which idiot would step on it, and she was the idiot this time around when she made the decision to move to National City once and for all.

The thing was that she had even _knowingly_ stepped into that pile of shit.

For a genius, Lena certainly hadn't been showing much of her prowess when she decided that.

"Is everything okay?"

Both of them simultaneously turned back to find that Sam had poked her head out, cautiously eyeing them both, as if they were teenagers about to head into the nearest Walmart to buy the cheapest vat of liquid nitrogen themselves. Not that Lena could blame her. She didn't ever think that she would one day be sitting next to her ex-wife and laughing with her either.

"We're fine, Sam," Kara reassured.

Only marginally relieved, the brunette averted her gaze to Lena, curiosity and caution perpetual. Perhaps in the next fifteen minutes, she and Kara would come to loggerheads again. For some reason though, the rain and the dampness of the air added a sense of safety. Or maybe it was just Kara.

As such, Lena only nodded to Sam's quiet question, a form of reassurance so her best friend would return to fawning over a new baby girl. The chatter from inside was muffled again when Sam closed the window shut, leaving her alone with her ex-wife again. Lena didn't hate it; she didn't feel an immediate urge to get the hell out of dodge and congratulate her best friend when they would finally be alone.

"Can I confess something?" Kara asked, snatching Lena's beer and taking a sip herself.

"Go ahead."

"I miss this."

Lena blinked, a crevice at the bridge of her nose. Gently, she took the bottle back and just…gulped, because what could she really say to that abrupt confession?

"Alex is great and all. I love talking to her; she's my best friend, you know," Kara rattled on, hands grasping the air, like trying to catch the rain in her grip. Alas, it slipped, like how Lena had slipped three years ago. "But you and I…" she drifted off, squinting at the building opposite them. "I don't know how to describe it, but it's different. And I miss it. I miss you."

Breathing stuttered. Chest stammering. Lena was surprised her hand didn't tremble as she deposited the now empty beer bottle next to her, susceptible to the strong wind that would topple it anytime. The temperature had dropped tremendously, even though it was hardly autumn, and yet, Lena felt hot.

Just all over. Eating the nerve endings that made up the structure of her, almost like each syllable that Kara had spoken was intended to burn her to the very core of her soul, the very insides of her hidden personality that no one had ever seen but Kara Danvers.

She didn't know where to look. Staring at the family in the opposite building would constitute as stalking if she kept it up. The rain was amplified only by the streetlamps, not a single drop to be focused on as it dripped and dripped and dripped. She desperately yearned to head inside and grab another beer, or maybe something stronger, but something told her that she _had_ to sit here for this, or everything would come crashing down…again.

She didn't know where to look, so she looked at Kara.

"You stopped loving me," she said, weak and fragile with the only person she could be weak and fragile with.

Kara chuckled sardonically. "I didn't stop loving you, Lena," she replied, sounding tired at having to explain. "I stopped convincing you that I loved you. There's a difference," she added. When Lena frowned deeper, she continued, "You didn't like that I was out there, risking my life to save others' lives. On top of that, I was studying to be a paramedic, while also getting a diploma in fire science. You were convinced that I was taking on all these things to avoid being at home with you. You were convinced that me going out there meant that I didn't love you enough to stay alive for you."

"You can hardly blame me."

"I don't. I was at fault too."

"I was going to bed alone. Almost every night. And if not, I come home in the morning and you're walking out the door. I go on walks and you're grumbling about having to spend more time outdoors. You stopped _looking_ at me."

"And you kept looking _for_ me. I know." Kara scratched at the back of her neck, hesitating, but eventually, she shifted closer to Lena, though they still didn't touch, as if she knew that the conversation didn't warrant touching. "I know, Lena, and I'm sorry for all the hurt I've caused you. I really am."

One of her arms extended in Lena's direction, but then stopped, hanging in the air, before retracting back to the railing. It was then that Lena realized she'd been crying. The alcohol had been fuzzy enough that she didn't realize this until Kara's hesitation in wiping the tears away.

Lena reached up to wipe them away, only for the traces to be replaced by new tears. She sniffled and cleared her throat, as if it was enough to wipe away the emotions that welled up in her. Emotions that she'd been keeping at bay since that first time she saw her ex-wife again in three years, and in an intense situation no less. Life had always had a knack for the dramatic for her.

"You weren't totally innocent too," Kara said.

While Lena had never liked being wrong, she knew that Kara was right too. "Yeah, I know."

"Could have talked to me, you know. Forced me to listen to you. You're very good at that."

"A human being needs fiber to be healthy, Kara."

"Kale is disgusting."

"This is why we're divorced."

Kara burst out laughing. Hearty and ringing in the most pleasurable way. She had a good laugh. "We were good," she commented once she sobered up. "I'm sorry that I didn't appreciate you enough for you to stay. I'm sorry that I left before I even realized I did. I'm really sorry, Lena."

Lena nodded, accepting the apology. She hadn't realized that she'd been waiting for it since the divorce, until now, when the words finally left Kara's mouth, sincere and wholehearted. She made the first move and reached out to clasp her hand over Kara's, trying not to think about the familiar skin, filled with callouses and traced all over with the years of being a frontliner.

"I'm sorry too," she whispered.

The blonde hummed, accepting too. "Can we be friends?"

"Yes, Kara, we can be friends."

The grin on Kara's face was enough to soothe the hurt that still lingered in Lena's chest. It was a good grin. Kara had always had that with her – the very first things that attracted Lena to her in the first place. Lena couldn't remember how she survived the last three years without hearing that laugh and seeing that smile.

* * *

_Kara (5:34 p.m.): nw tat we're friends  
Kara (5:34 p.m.): n aunts  
Kara (5:35 p.m.): do u wanna go pick up some stuf 4 our future niece together_

_Lena (6:09 p.m.): I see you still can't text in proper English._

_Kara (6:14 p.m.): no 1s gt time 4 tat_

_Lena (6:15 p.m.): Not our niece. Your niece. I'm just a fun aunt who's her mother's best friend._

_Kara (6:16 p.m.): i bet u 50 bucks tat sam wil want u to b a godmother_

_Lena (6:16 p.m.): I'll take that bet_

* * *

Being adopted into the Luthor household meant that everything was catered to her. There were maids and butlers – Lena was kind of surprised that they didn't have footmen. During her childhood, Lionel and Lillian were hands-off, never spoon feeding her, only there for the school activities and ensuring that she was the smartest they could get her to be.

In that sense, they were great parents. Lionel would bring her to LuthorCorp and let her study documents on the latest medical tech they were developing, either asking for input from her five-year-old brain or educating her on the different aspects on how LuthorCorp products were changing the medical field. Lillian would sit there, tutoring her on science and math, sometimes even English if Lena was really stumped, though she rarely ever was.

But other than that, they never brought her to a toy store. Sneered at the sight of arcades and fun fairs. The most fun they ever had together as a family was the golf course, teaching her grips and swings and calculations of distances to get the ball in the hole.

The Luthors bred and cultivated geniuses, but never really _children_.

Her brother, on the other hand, was different. He seemed to understand that Lena was…different, that she only had _half_ a Luthor in her genes, so while she had the intellect, she also had the yearning for something other than numbers and organs.

He taught her how to ride horses. He showed her how to be kind to the staff and ask about their families. He displayed humanity that Lionel and Lillian seemed incapable of. He was the one who exhibited that feelings were not bad and it wasn't wrong to talk about them, either to a therapist or a close friend. Or a brother who tried his best to make sure she wouldn't grow up cold and heartless.

He was the only who had publicly showed his support for her relationship and subsequent marriage with Kara, and she loved him solely for that.

"How's National City, kid?"

She hummed. "I saw Kara."

He paused, perplexed expression obvious in the pixels of her phone screen. "I'm sorry. Which Kara?"

She rolled her eyes and settled comfortably on her couch. "We only know one Kara."

"I once had sex with a Kara."

"That is disgusting and I don't wanna know," she sneered, rolling her eyes again.

He cleared his throat. He was clearly still in the lab, what with the coat and the goggles tucked on top of his shiny bald head – she wanted to touch his scalp through the screen, just to provoke him a bit. "Right. Is she being mean to you? I have cronies in National City," he added with a teasing wink.

She scoffed and carded her fingers through her hair. "No, we're…friends now, I think," she muttered, squinting a little, recalling her conversation with the blonde last night. "And Alex, James, and Lucy. I saw them too."

"I'm starting to think National City has it out for you."

"I moved here knowing they'd be here."

"Come on, kid," he prompted, taking off the goggles and heading out a door of a room or something. She couldn't tell through the small screen. "Tell me everything."

And she did, because he was her brother – and after the divorce, he and Sam were the only ones she could truly talk to without being afraid of judgement on the other end.

She told him about the accident that led to their reunion. She told him about Alex scolding her for disappearing and not reestablishing contact. She told him about what it was like to see Kara again, all blonde and clumsy and still totally electrifying with her unfairly blue eyes and steady tortoise-shell spectacles. She told him about the lingering heartache that had never left and how her brain still came to a standstill whenever Kara even so much as hinted at a smile.

It felt nice to get it all off her shoulders, because she couldn't tell Sam everything, given that the woman was married to Alex and she deserved to not have to keep secrets from her own wife. Still, she also felt like she might pick up on day drinking just to lighten off the immense confusion that had come with seeing her ex-wife again and finding out that she was still the sweet and bumbling Kara Danvers that Lena had fallen in love with six years ago.

"Surprisingly, they don't hate me," she said, a small smile on her lips. "I can't imagine why."

"Come on. They're smart people. They were there when it all went down. They know you had to walk away," Lex deduced as he clicked his tongue, disapproving of her attitude. "So do we hate Kara or like Kara?"

See, this was why she loved him – he was always on her side. "Would it be weird if I say we liked Kara?"

He shrugged. "You did marry her."

"And divorced her."

He hummed. "Do you wanna…tell mom and dad about it?"

"Mom's gonna laugh at me."

"She'll also get the chef to cook you your favorite food," Lex pointed out, which wasn't completely untrue. Lillian may be cold, but she showed that she cared in different ways, subtle ways that took Lena more than ten years to figure out. "Look, kid, I just want you to live your best life as a doctor and a person. As long as you're happy and the people in your life are good people, I'm all for it."

"I missed her, you know," she admitted, something she never managed to tell Kara last night.

"You'll be okay, kid."

"Yeah. If not, just call me. Like I said, I have cronies in National City."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the luthors will be good to lena in my au goddammit she deserves it
> 
> oh, and i like [coffee](https://cyclothimic.tumblr.com/post/611650626423816192/a-struggling-writers-tale), if you catch my drift, or you can catch me on [embettah](https://twitter.com/embettah).


	5. low frequency, high-risk business

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all i can say is that it's been a pretty busy month
> 
> now read, ponder, and enjoy!

"Do not laugh."

"No one's laughing."

"Danvers looks like her lungs are about to burst."

The lieutenant mimed zipping her mouth, but couldn't help snorting rather rudely even then. Like a domino effect, the rest of the team started chuckling or trying their best to muffle their mirth. Kara could only raise her hands in defense, deliberately not looking at the victim who was stuck in an embarrassing position.

"Look, it's not everyday you get called to rescue a lady who's stuck in a window because she aimed her poop wrongly," she offered and snorted again after stealing a glance at said lady. "See, this is why I don't do online dating."

"This is not the reason. You don't even date," Sam replied blithely, throwing a knowing glance at her sister-in-law and motioning the rest of the team to get to work. "Just for being a rude bitch, you're on poop duty."

At that, none of them even tried to hold back their amusement, guffawing and patting Kara's shoulders as they walked past. Meanwhile, Kara could only squawk and gape, until she relented to her fate and started scrounging for a paper bag. Well, at least she didn't have to look the woman in the face, or she would have actually laughed harder.

It took them about two hours to pry the window open, with Nia focusing on calming the woman down so that her internals wouldn't get too messed up after the mess she was already in. Surprisingly, but sweetly still, the woman's date didn't seem to mind that he had to call in city resources to rescue her from her diarrhea panic, and didn't even hesitate to ask her out on a second date.

Of course, Caitlin had to be snipy and remind them that they would probably have to have their second date in the hospital. But that only kind of made it sweeter, because the guy actually sat in the hospital with them, claiming that he was gonna raid all the vending machines in the hospital so they could have their second date immediately.

"I bet they're gonna get married and have two and a half kids," Kara mused as she sat in the passenger seat of the engine while Sam drove.

Sam hummed in ponderance. "So you still believe in it?"

Kara turned to her, narrowing her eyes slightly. "What do you mean?"

For a moment, all the captain did was flex her fingers on the steering wheel, biting her lower lip as she contemplated whatever it was in her head. Then she moved to shift her headset and cup the microphone. Oh, okay, so they were doing that kind of talk now. The blonde mirrored her captain's movements as well, waiting.

"Marriage, you still believe in that?" Sam asked carefully, deliberating taking advantage of her role as a driver to not look at Kara.

Kara blinked a few times, and then she sighed, casting a perfunctory glance at James, Nia, and Winn, who were sitting behind them, to make sure they weren't eavesdropping. "Just because _my_ marriage failed doesn't mean every other marriage is gonna fail, Sam," she answered. "I will admit there was a time when I practically didn't believe in _anything_ , but it was a phase."

That was a bleak phase, spanning from the denial to anger stages of her grief process in mourning the death of her marriage to the most radiant being on the face of the planet. She didn't believe in anything; everything either made her extremely sad or extremely angry.

But then she witnessed relationships around her, burgeoning and unrelenting in their utter devotion. The kind where one would die for the other. Alex and Sam. James and Lucy. Clark and Lois. Her disappointment in the idea of relationships were relit as she watched them, and her failed marriage was just one of many, like Alex and Sam's marriage were just one many successful marriages.

How could she not believe in a beautiful thing like love when she saw it every day in the way where Sam always kept her promise to be home on time? Or the way Alex had a standing reservation at their favorite restaurant for their wedding reservation? Or the way Clark looked at Lois like she created the universe?

Sam nodded in acceptance. "Would you…wanna do it again?" Kara raised an eyebrow. "Get married, I mean," Sam clarified.

Without even a hesitation, because this was question that she'd asked and answered herself many times in the past, Kara said, "No."

"Why?"

Kara had to look away, because she couldn't be confronted with the looks and sighs that would definitely come. Her grip on the mic tightened, because this was the one thing she couldn't let anyone else know. No one that didn't know her history with Lena anyway.

"I had my chance with the best person I could ever be with, and I blew it. I don't want another chance with anyone lesser."

That was always it. _Lena_ was always it. Lena was her best chance, her best anything, and she blew it all to hell.

She didn't know what would happen in the future. Maybe sometime down the road, she would watch Lena walk down the aisle to someone else. Kara didn't know how she would feel then, but she would never stop hoping that it would be an individual who knew to love and appreciate Lena better than she did.

* * *

It was kind of fucked up that children things, things that would only be used for at most five years, clothing that only fit for less than a year before they to be switched out again; these tiny, little _children_ things for tiny, little _children_ could cost so damn much. Kara had never known until she walked into the mall, and she inadvertently developed a deeper appreciation for parents.

She'd been gasping and groaning at every price tag she looked at. And now, she was just glaring at a stroller that she'd passed by – not that she was planning on buying it, because Ruby was five and Alex told her that she didn't need a stroller at that age. Kara was just passing by, and she caught a glimpse of the price tag, and now she was just glaring at it, like there was a chance that the object would catch on fire and do away with it.

Lena sidled up to her and glanced at the array of strollers in front of them. "I think Ruby's a little too big for strollers," she remarked teasingly, as if she hadn't been listening to Kara complain about the exorbitant prices of these _tiny_ and _unsustainable_ things for _little_ human beings.

Kara made a sound, almost inhumane, so loud that a passing mother had to cover her daughter's ears; no children should ever learn to make a sound so obscene. Not that she cared; she found herself unable to think about anything but at the strollers that could have taken a huge chunk out of any middle-class family's income.

"That thing's 400 bucks," she growled, pointing at one stroller. "I saw one that was like…800 bucks just now."

"Yes, children are expensive to maintain. You should have a look at the price rates of our pediatric wing," Lena muttered, quietly steering Kara away from the offending items by pulling on her elbow. "We're not here for strollers though."

"It's not even just the strollers."

"I haven't seen you this passionate for quite some time."

"Look at the prices of these things!" Kara exclaimed, stopping by the clothing section and pointing a random tiny sweat shirt. "$80 for something that they can't even fit in two years! Ridiculous."

"Amen to that, sister," a random woman remarked as she walked past them, as haggard looking as a mother should look.

"Hey, this is actually cute," Lena commented on the sweat shirt that Kara had been looking at. "Ruby would look great in this." When she looked up and saw Kara balking at her, she rolled her eyes and sighed. "Only the best for your niece, Danvers."

The blonde deflated at that, seeing the truth in Lena's words. They were in this shop for a reason. She sighed and remembered the pictures that Alex had been sending her since she and Sam had announced the adoption plan, and subsequently melted at the sight of Ruby, all five years old and ready to have a horde of non-blood family crooning at her like the most precious thing on earth.

"I'm just saying it's ridiculous," she grumbled while flagging down a nearby sales assistant to find out what size would best fit a five-year-old girl.

By then, a sales assistant had sidled up to them.

Kara was still unnerved by the glaring price tags all over the place, but she was also warmed up all over. Watching Lena patiently going over the list that she'd inevitably compiled the night before; nothing but the best for the new kid that would show up in their lives, albeit not theirs. Looking at the way Lena smiled and giggled at things that she found cute. Bickering over price tags and yet paying for them at the cashier anyway.

This was a reminder, a bittersweet one. Of all the good old times, when they were two young fools in love who would take joy in something as simple as a late-night Costco run because they'd run out of Ben & Jerry's. The easy laughter and giggles. The sneaky and not-so-sneaky kisses. The sex in the fitting rooms and getting kicked out of a bar because they'd gotten too frisky on the dance floor.

It would be a lie to say that she didn't still miss it. Just being in Lena's arms in bed late at night, talking about everything and nothing – that was the best; something Kara could never find with anyone else no matter how much hard she tried.

* * *

"Hey, do five-year-olds still drink formula?"

"How are you a paramedic?"

* * *

Lena and Kara walked into the shop empty-handed and came out with no less than six huge paper bags, filled with clothes and cups and snacks and safety gates, but mostly clothes. The sales assistant had been positively delighted at the amount they were purchasing, or maybe just the commission she would be getting just for the cutting the deal.

Standing outside the shop, mall patrons milling about them to do their own businesses, the blonde and the raven-haired woman hesitated. Shopping for her niece was some sort of a reprieve, and yeah, they may be friends now, but the air still hung heavy with their past and it would be impossible for them to ignore that. For Kara to ignore that.

She could see that Lena was about to walk away, and she didn't know what possessed her at the moment, because it would be better for Lena to walk away and have another try at this weird friendship thing they agreed to some other time. But she certainly didn't let Lena do that.

"Do you wanna take a walk?" she invited.

The mall was close to both the hospital and the firehouse, which meant they were also close to the park where Lena had once yelled at Kara for things in the past. In retrospect, Kara still couldn't figure out whether it was a good decision to come to a place so close after all.

Lena blinked and smiled a little. "We're carrying six bags of stuff, Kara," she said, heaving the bags up. "I don't know about you, but I do not have the biceps that you've been blessed with."

"Been looking, huh?"

"Hard to miss."

"We can put these in your car first," Kara replied quickly, as she didn't know how she can respond to Lena's easy retort. "Unless…you don't wanna take that walk with me. No pressure. I just thought…" she drifted off and refrained from sighing at her own uselessness.

Lena worried her lower lip, eyes still locked on Kara. For a moment, Kara was thrown back to the time when they'd run into each other again on the quad after the first time they'd met, and Kara had bravely asked Lena out for coffee, setting in motion a whole array of laughter and tears and heartbreak.

And then Lena nodded. Kara could hardly fight off the smile from showing up on her face, only following Lena to her car to drop off their expensive purchases.

* * *

Dog were pattering all over the park, chasing after boomerangs and sticks. Couples were strolling, old and young, loving and arguing, holding hands and distanced. Toddlers were toddling around, yelled after by their parents and giggling about like they didn't have a care in the world; well, maybe because they really didn't.

All sorts. And among them were a firefighter and a doctor. Front-liners. Noblest jobs in the world. Saving cats and saving lives. Strangers wouldn't know a lick about them by just looking at them. Strangers saw only a thoughtful look on the raven-haired woman's face and a pensive expression clouding the blonde. Strangers wouldn't have thought that their history ran years back; that there were divorce papers tucked in the back of their storage unit, willfully banished and unwanted.

Dogs and couples and toddlers and parents saw Lena and Kara, but not really Lena and Kara.

They didn't know that Kara was struggling with feelings that had never been washed away despite three years of having separated from the woman next to her. They didn't know that Lena was feeling immense guilt for having yelled and given up so easily, landing her and Kara in the awkward position they were currently in.

"Would we have gotten a dog?" Kara eventually asked after spotting a golden retriever delightfully sneezing in its owner's face.

Lena saw the golden retriever too and giggled slightly. "Honestly, you almost convinced me of it before it all fell apart," she confessed.

Kara felt a familiar ache tugging in her chest at the reminder. She offered, "Barnaby."

"Horrid name."

"Barney, in short."

"Yes, most likely."

"Maybe not a golden retriever."

"I quite like a schnauzer."

"Oh, they're cute."

"Grumpily so."

"Fifteen years?"

"I reckon longer than that."

"Would hypothetical Barney the schnauzer save our marriage?" Kara then asked.

Even then, she couldn't quite bring herself to regret her line of questioning. It was as if one tipsy conversation on Alex's fire escape had knocked down the dam and unleash the questions that had been haunting her brain for three years. When Lena paused in her steps, Kara did too, staring at her ex-wife expectantly.

Lena inhaled deeply and held it for a long moment before expelling it all in one whoosh. Then she lifted her eyes to meet Kara's soulful ones. "No, Kara, I don't think so."

The knife went deeper – the knife that had never gone away, just like her bubbling feelings. She should have known from the moment at the bus stop that she would forever be leashed to this woman in front of her, ethereal and bright and oh so compelling in her very presence. The Luthors certainly did a good job in crafting Lena; Kara briefly wondered if she'd ever thanked her former in-laws for that.

Part of her wanted to argue Lena's seemingly decisive conclusion, but her ears picked up on the fragility in Lena's tone and the unwillingness she'd overtaken to speak the words, so she didn't. She'd spent the latter part of their marriage arguing with the woman; arguing now wouldn't make much sense. It wouldn't do either of them any good.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you," Lena said as they restarted the walk. "I was exhausted and you were there and I – well, it was surprising, to say the least," she added with a sardonic chuckle. "It was unfair of me."

"I'm sorry I ever made you feel like I never enjoyed these walks with you," Kara offered her own apology, softly and wholeheartedly. The evident surprise in Lena's eyes only served to hurt more. "I had never not look forward to spend time with you, but I guess I hadn't really learnt how to juggle my responsibilities, letting everything mix with everything, and that eventually affected the way you perceived me."

Lena tilted her head. "You said you stopped convincing me that you loved me. What did you mean?"

"You were – I was away from home a lot. Didn't even have time to convince you to get a dog with me," she added with a laugh. "And you thought I just didn't wanna go home to you. Or that you were suffocating me. Or worse still, you thought I was _cheating_ on you." She shook her head at the memories of Lena hurling those accusations at her. "I kept telling you that none of those were true, because, Lena, the _best_ moment of my day had always been coming home to you."

"But I wouldn't listen."

"Yeah, so eventually, a part of me decided to just fuck it and let you believe whatever you think of me. Well, whatever, except for the part where you thought I would cheat on you," she said firmly, clenching her fists in her pockets. "There is _no way_ in the world I would have cheated on you, Lena. I wanted to be _better_ for you, which was why I even decided to take a chance at being a paramedic in the first place."

"You didn't have to do that."

"Your mother didn't like me for being a flimsy firefighter when you were pretty much a neurology _and_ a trauma surgeon already."

Lena only laughed at that, which Kara found slightly offensive. "Kara, my mother gave me a dressing down for 'divorcing a splendid wife' such as yourself. Her words, not mine."

Kara blinked and then squawked so loudly in disbelief that a few ducks scurried away from them. "No way!"

"Darling, I've told you many times that Lillian Luthor is an acquired taste."

Behind her ribs, the blonde's heart _lurched_ at the pet name. A sudden stone rose up in her throat. She gulped it down and whispered, "I missed that, you know." Lena raised a brow, unaware still of what Kara was referring to. "You calling me that. I missed it." The brow lowered back to its original position. "I miss a lot of things."

Lena looked away abruptly and swallowed. "Kara," she enunciated carefully, shaking her head. "You can't say things like that. Not anymore."

"I know."

"I can't even remember the last time we kissed."

"Sam's birthday," Kara answered immediately. "You were standing out on the balcony at their old place, because you needed some air. I joined you. You were drinking…orange juice. I told you I drive us back home, but you didn't trust me driving, so you started diluting all the alcohol with orange juice after your second glass of wine. And we kissed. It was a full moon. That was the last time we kissed."

This time, Lena was the one staring at her. Well, more like gaping. Meanwhile, Kara was the one who didn't dare look at her, choosing to concentrate on her sneakers instead.

The courage that came with that tipsy fire escape conversation only went so far. Despite their current friendship that was still in an odd place, there were still some things she would like to keep to herself.

Like how she could remember their first kiss, first date, first time saying the four-letter word, first fight, first everything. Like how she kept thinking about their last kiss, last laugh, last walk, last kiss, last everything, to nitpick the moment either of them decided they'd had enough. Kara could never confess to the fact that she had never stopped thinking about these things. About Lena.

* * *

"Do you and Lena Luthor have a secret kid or something?" Winn asked after they'd spent thirty minutes in the gym, where he'd looked as if he was constipated for almost as long as they'd been in there.

Water literally spurted out of Kara's nose. The bottle she was holding had dropped dramatically on the floor, spilling its contents all over the place. She swallowed the remaining water and started coughing hysterically, gaping at him the whole time.

Unfortunately for them – or maybe just her – Nia, Barry, and James were passing by the room. They skidded to a halt immediately, two of them gaping between Kara and Winn while one was just decidedly alarmed and wary at Winn's unwarranted query.

"What?" Kara gasped, having taken a seat on the yoga ball and still patting her chest.

"I saw you. At the mall. With the doctor," Winn stuttered, looking like he immensely regretted the way he'd blurted the question.

"Winn, you don't just ask a question like that!" James admonished, pushing past Nia and Barry to smack Winn on the arm. Not really lightly, considering the arms he'd built. He turned to Kara still, slightly bemused despite it all. "What _were_ you doing at the mall with Lena anyway?"

"Lena?" Nia muttered.

"Ask Sam," Kara offered James, electing to ignore Nia's observation. James' brows rose, comprehending the secrecy of the situation. She turned towards Winn, wry smile on her lips. "No, Winn, I do not have a secret kid with Lena."

"Still with the Lena," Barry observed, tilting his head as he squinted at them. "Are we missing something?"

Kara shook her head as she chuckled lightly, pulling on James' arm to tug him out of the gym with her. "None of your business," she threw over her shoulder.

It was only until they'd rounded the corner, on the way to the locker room, that James burst into raucous guffaws. Just heaving, almost wheezing with it. So much so that he had to lean against the wall and keel over, propping his hands on his knees to keep himself standing.

The blonde rolled her eyes but couldn't help grinning herself. She joined him at the wall and shooed away anyone who even showed a sign of curiosity at the two of them. She wouldn't lie and say that Winn's outburst hadn't been hilarious, but it also served as a sore reminder that she and Lena had never really gotten to that point in their marriage.

"We were buying things for Ruby," she explained once he'd sobered up. "I spent most of it gawking at the prices of kids' stuff," she added, still finding it hard to believe.

"So you guys are…okay now?"

Kara shrugged. She and Lena had parted ways with smiles on their faces and words of seeing one another again – given their jobs, they would be seeing a lot of each other. But she'd gone home and thought about their conversation, and it invoked emotions all over again, spilling out the corners of her eyes and into a tub of Ben & Jerry's.

"Okay is an overstatement. We're working on it."

"Well, you're shopping together. I'd say that's something."

"She didn't remember the last time we kissed."

James stiffened a little next to her. He watched her for a bit, studying her expression and attempting to find words that wouldn't stick that knife deeper. "I think a lot of the memories in the latter part of your marriage overshadowed a lot of the other stuff for her, but I'm sure it doesn't mean she loved you any less," he said carefully, picking his words from a limited vocabulary suitable for a divorced friend.

She hummed, arms crossed.

"Secret kid, though," James echoed, grinning again.

She chuckled and shook her head. "We didn't even manage to get a dog, goodness."

Just then, Sam hurried around the corner, almost colliding into a coat rack as she came to a sudden stop in front of them. Her face was stricken with fear and concern, and she looked at Kara, her phone tightly gripped in her hand.

"It's Lena."

Kara pushed off the wall in an instance. "What? What about Lena?"

"Her father's had a heart attack."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof, i just can't help it with the drama
> 
> oh, and i like [coffee](https://cyclothimic.tumblr.com/post/611650626423816192/a-struggling-writers-tale), if you catch my drift, or you can catch me on [embettah](https://twitter.com/embettah).
> 
> no seriously, please visit the tumblr link above if you'd be so kind.


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